After Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn’s first major knee surgery in 2013, she couldn’t sleep. This was the start of a cycle of additional injuries, additional anxiety and stress snowballing into an eventual diagnosis of insomnia.
Now, Vonn is teaming up with Idorsia Pharmaceuticals on its sleep drug Quviviq as its new Celebrity Patient Ambassador. Vonn appeared in media interviews this week, including the Today Show and People magazine, talking about her sleep issues, as well as general mental health issues.
She is also appearing in digital and social promotions and, along with another famous Quviviq patient, actor Taye Diggs, will star in upcoming direct-to-consumer television commercials slated for the fall.
For Vonn, it was the skiing injuries that “really put me on the road to insomnia for the next one, how much? Nine years,” she says in a video on the Quviviq website.
“It was difficult because I knew how important sleep was for recovering from my physical injuries, because sleep is not only important for your mind, it’s also very important for your body to recover. When I retired, it made my sleep so much worse,” she says.
Vonn retired in 2019 after a 19-year career in alpine skiing, winning three Olympic medals, a world record 20 World Cup crystal globes and a women’s record 82 World Cup victories.
Patricia Torr“Real authentic stories really connect with patients and we all try to empower patients to talk to their doctors about insomnia and potential solutions to help improve their condition. Lindsey is a perfect fit with that,” said Patricia Torr, President and CEO of Idorsia.
While Vonn and Diggs also suffer from insomnia, their conditions had different triggers – in Diggs’ case, becoming a parent and waking up at night to help care for her son.
Michael Moye, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Idorsia, said: “Just like those two, there are triggers. People think “Oh, it’ll pass – it just has to do with what’s going on right now.” Then literally years later they are still suffering from insomnia.
Michael MoyeThe Idorsia team believe hearing Vonn and Diggs’ stories of years of insomnia triggered by different causes will “really resonate with a lot of people”, he added.
Idorsia is also running a multi-year non-branded insomnia awareness campaign in digital, social and TV ads featuring actress Jennifer Aniston. The “Seize the Night & Day” effort began in January with television commercials directed by well-known director Taika Waititi. The TV spots show Aniston struggling through sleepless nights and into the groggy new commercial mornings, as she appears alongside a more cheerful version of herself who tells her “Good days start with good days.” nights” and advises to talk to him (their?) doctor.
Idorsia estimates that 25 million people in the United States suffer from insomnia, ranking it as the most common sleep disorder in the country.
The FDA approved Quviviq, a dual orexin receptor antagonist (DORA), in January in two doses — 25 mg and 50 mg — both showing statistically significant improvements in polysomnography and self-reported total sleep. Quviviq was on par with the placebo in terms of safety, beating it from two previously approved DORAs, Belsomra from Merck and Dayvigo from Eisai, both of which came with warning labels.
Older sleeping pills such as Ambien, Lunesta and Sonata received black box warnings from the FDA in 2019 after reports of patients walking and eating while sleeping with sometimes disastrous results, including 20 related deaths from drowning, falls, accidents car and suicide.