MAM
McCann Erikson appoints Suraja Kishore as head planning
MUMBAI: There’s some change at top at the McCann Erikson office. The agency has roped in Suraja Kishore from Publicis Ambience for its Mumbai office as the head planning.
Suraja comes with over 17 year of experience and has worked on Idea Cellular – What an Idea, and the iconic Tata Tea – Jaago Re campaigns. On his new role, he said, “McCann Erickson is known for its creative force and it has brands that enjoy scale and size. I think it is the right place for strategic planning to make a real difference. I look forward to creating transformational brand stories that are based on powerful human truths.”
He is a postgraduate from Tata Institue of Social Science and began his career as a copywriter at the then Chaitra Leo Burnett. He began is planning stint in Mudra Delhi. He has worked on diverse categories and brands such as Croma, Ginger Hotels, Lakme, Axa Insurance, Citibank, Park Avenue Men grooming products, World Gold Council, Renault Duster, Henko Detergent, Tata Automotive, Hershey’s Milk Mix, Electrolux, Yamaha Motorcycles, Ariel Detergent and Suzlon, among others.
McCann Erikson president Govind Pandey said, “Suraja will gainfully enhance ME’s strategic planning prowess. He is a seasoned professional and has an interesting and rich way of seeing life and people. His contribution will enhance relevance for our brands by adding depth and nuance to our solutions.”
McCann Erickson Mumbai senior VP and GM Namrata Nandan added, “McCann Mumbai’s team is strengthened with Suraja’s addition, and we look forward to working together and creating great work for our brands.”
Brands
Bayer sues Johnson & Johnson over prostate cancer drug advertisements
Legal dispute begins as Bayer claims rival marketing is based on flawed data
NEW YORK: Bayer has filed a federal lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in New York, alleging that the American pharmaceutical company has used false and misleading advertisements to promote its prostate cancer treatment, Erleada. The dispute centres on claims that Erleada is significantly more effective than Bayer’s competing drug, Nubeqa.
The legal action follows a J&J marketing campaign that cited a 51 per cent reduction in the risk of death for patients using Erleada compared to those on Nubeqa. Bayer contends that these figures are based on a study with severe methodological errors rather than a controlled clinical trial.
Bayer’s legal team argues that J&J’s real-world analysis is fundamentally flawed. According to the complaint, J&J claimed to have 24 months of patient data supporting its conclusions, even though many patients included in the study had reportedly been on the medication for only a few months, raising concerns about the reliability of long-term survival comparisons.
The lawsuit also highlights what Bayer describes as a critical approval gap. For most of the period analysed in J&J’s study, Nubeqa had not yet been approved for the specific indication being evaluated, which Bayer argues makes a direct clinical comparison inappropriate and potentially misleading.
Additionally, Bayer contends that the study suffered from significant sample imbalance. The analysis reportedly included five times as many Erleada patients as Nubeqa patients, a disparity that Bayer says introduced statistical bias and undermined the validity of the findings.
Bayer is pursuing the case under the Lanham Act, the U.S. law governing false advertising and unfair competition. The company is seeking an immediate halt to J&J’s current marketing campaign and is asking the court to require corrective statements to physicians to address what it characterises as inaccurate claims.
Furthermore, Bayer is seeking monetary damages, arguing that the alleged misleading advertisements have resulted in lost revenue and reputational harm to Nubeqa.
Johnson & Johnson has responded by stating that it stands by the integrity of its data and the rigour of its analysis. The case will now proceed through the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
