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.
Brands
Godrej clarifies ‘GI’ identifier after logo similarity debate
Says GI is not a logo, will not replace Godrej signature across products.
MUMBAI: In a branding storm where shapes did the talking, Godrej is now spelling things out. Godrej Industries Group (GIG) has issued a clarification on its newly introduced ‘GI’ identifier, addressing questions around its purpose and design following a wave of online criticism. At the centre of the debate were two concerns: whether the new mark replaces the long-standing Godrej logo, and whether its geometric design mirrors other corporate identities.
The company has drawn a clear line. The Godrej signature logo, it said, remains unchanged and continues to be the sole logo across all consumer-facing products and services. The ‘GI’ mark, by contrast, is not a logo but a corporate group identifier intended for use alongside the Godrej signature or company name, and aimed at stakeholders such as investors, media and talent rather than consumers.
The need for such a distinction stems from the 2024 restructuring of the broader Godrej Group into two separate business entities. With both continuing to operate under the same Godrej name and signature, the identifier is positioned as a way to differentiate the Godrej Industries Group at a corporate level.
The rollout, however, triggered a broader conversation on design originality. Critics pointed to similarities between the GI mark’s geometric composition and logos used by companies globally, raising questions about distinctiveness.
Responding to this, GIG said its intellectual property and legal review found that such overlaps are common in minimalist, geometry-led design systems. Basic forms such as circles and rectangles appear across dozens of brand identities worldwide, the company noted.
It added that the identifier emerged from an extensive design process and was chosen for its simplicity, allowing it to sit alongside the Godrej signature without competing visually. While acknowledging that elemental shapes may appear less distinctive in isolation, the group emphasised that the mark is part of a broader identity system that includes a custom typeface, sonic branding and other proprietary elements.
Following legal and ethical assessments, the company said it found no impediment to using the identifier, reiterating that the GI mark is a corporate tool not a consumer-facing symbol.
In short, the logo isn’t changing but the conversation around it certainly has.
