A year ago, miR Scientific lit La Fortaleza, the Puerto Rico Governor’s mansion, and other landmarks on the island blue for Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Next month, the company is taking the international campaign by launching its prostate cancer diagnostic test.
miR is coordinating an effort to light up dozens of landmarks in New York, New Jersey, Chicago and Puerto Rico on September 1 as part of its “Can Do Blue” campaign. He also hopes to spread the word in Canada, Israel, Japan, Singapore and other markets.
“Prostate cancer awareness needed to happen,” said Arminda Figueroa, miR chief of staff and country lead for Puerto Rico. “As one of the surviving prostate cancer patients told us, nobody talks about anything below the navel.”
This is especially important in Puerto Rico, where prostate cancer rates are 149% higher than in the contiguous United States, and men are 65% more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage. Since 2019, miR has worked with doctors, universities and the government to encourage men to get tested.
Last year, miR, Governor Pedro Pierluisi, and the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration teamed up to officially designate September 1 as “Prostate Cancer Prevention Day.”
“From a political point of view, it was a great victory,” Figueroa said.
While the ‘Can Do Blue’ campaign is unbranded, miR announced last month that it was launching the miR Sentinel, a urine-based test that analyzes small non-coding RNAs to detect, classify and monitor breast cancer. the prostate at the molecular level in men 45 years and older. Since it is non-invasive, miR presents it as a tool that could potentially reduce unnecessary biopsies in low-risk men.
In a trial involving around 1,100 men, miR Sentinel was shown to identify prostate cancer in men at risk with a sensitivity of 98.5%, according to the company.
miR’s campaign is one of many creative approaches the industry has taken to raise awareness about prostate and testicular cancer in recent years. J&J’s Janssen hosted a Blue Jacket fashion show during New York Fashion Week in support of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. The company’s prostate cancer treatment, Erleada, generated $450 million in global sales last quarter alone.
Meanwhile, men’s health charity Movember recently won a silver award at the Cannes Lions creativity festival for its NFT, or Non-Fungible Testicles, campaign encouraging men to check themselves for cancer. testicles.
“Most importantly, we want to save people’s lives,” Figueroa said. “I hope it becomes like breast cancer, that all the landmarks are lit up in the world. We’re emulating the pattern. … But the fact that people are talking about the subject in Puerto Rico, it never happened. produced before.
