Takeda leverages lung cancer awareness month to highlight ALK variant

Takeda’s is putting the tALK in ALK-positive lung cancer with a new awareness campaign. Launched for lung cancer awareness month in November, the "tALK+" (Talk Positive) campaign focuses on the ALK-positive form of lung cancer, which affects between 2% and 8% of all non-small cell lung cancer patients.

The digital and social media effort encourages patients, caregivers and healthcare providers to share positive experiences and stories.

"The concept of ‘talk positively’ has different meanings. There’s the awareness around the ALK-positive genetic mutation, and there’s also the opportunity to de-stigmatize and provide hope to the lung cancer community," Fatima Scipione, senior director of patient advocacy for Takeda Oncology, said.

For every insight and story shared with the hashtag #tALKpositiveNSCLC during the month, Takeda will make a donation to the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation.

Along with the campaign, Takeda is also launching its first registry for ALK-positive patients. The ALKConnect Registry will collect information and insights from patients living with ALK-positive NSCLC who opt into the database. The patients can then participate in surveys and share experiences as well as access data and insights from other patients and find out about new research studies.

Takeda won accelerated approval in the spring for Alunbrig to treat patients with ALK-positive NSCLC who have failed on or are intolerant to Pfizer's Xalkori. Takeda acquired Alunbrig through its purchase of Boston biotech Ariad, which closed early this year, but the Japanese drugmaker already faces new competition from Roche’s Alecensa which was recently approved to treat newly diagnosed patients with ALK-positive disease.