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I-Flow CorporationI-Flow Corporation (NASDAQ:IFLO) manufactures and markets the ON-Q PainBuster® Post-Operative Pain Relief System. I-Flow has built a reputation in the medical and health care industry as an innovator in drug delivery technology. Through product innovation, I-Flow has emerged as a leader in the growing field of pain relief, offering cutting-edge therapies to physicians and their patients. I-Flow is located in Lake Forest, Calif., and is available on the Web at www.iflo.com.ON-Q PainBuster reduces the need for patients to take narcotics (such as morphine) following surgery by delivering anesthetic directly to an incision site continuously over the course of five days. ON-Q PainBuster has been found to reduce narcotics intake by 40 to 70 percent depending upon the surgery and helps patients get out of the hospital and back to their normal lives faster. ON-Q was cleared by the FDA in May 1998, and since then I-Flow has been focused on building a wealth of clinical data to support the use of ON-Q for different types of surgeries and drive physician demand. Business ChallengeNarcotics are the standard of care for post-surgical pain relief and, while they do have associated side effects, they are a proven and effective pain relief option. For a surgeon, the routine use of ON-Q PainBuster requires a change in surgical behavior because he or she must implant the ON-Q catheter following the surgery. Thus, when I-Flow came to Schwartz Communications in January 2003, ON-Q was used primarily by a small group of innovative surgeons who routinely employ new technology.The lack of awareness on the physician side about ON-Q, or the lack of a desire to change practice, had resulted in a low level of patient awareness of the product. Most patients assume that they will need narcotics following surgery. I-Flow had come to the realization that in order to get broad physician adoption, it was necessary for patients to become aware of their options for pain relief following surgery and demand ON-Q by name.
Schwartz PR Strategy- Target top-tier consumer media with the highest readership and viewership of potential ON-Q patients.
- Raise awareness of options for post-surgical pain relief and position narcotics as an antiquated means of relieving pain. Create messaging that describes how ON-Q responds to the demands of “today’s patient,” for example, the working mother undergoing a c-section who simply does not have time for a long recovery.
- Put a face to the issue of post-surgical pain, specifically using spokespeople who had undergone surgery both with and without ON-Q and could compare and contrast the experiences.
- Highlight the large number of individuals who undergo surgery each year, leverage the increasing visibility of plastic surgery and weight loss surgery in the media to educate patients about their options for recovery.
- Leverage I-Flow’s wealth of clinical data to underscore validity of the product. Promote the presentation and publication of data related to the use of ON-Q with different surgical procedures.
- Establish key researchers as experts on post-surgical pain.
Results- In the first year of its engagement with I-Flow, Schwartz secured PR coverage in six of I-Flow’s target national consumer media outlets, including the Associated Press (circulation more than 7 million), Reader’s Digest, Dow Jones Newswire, The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times.
- Schwartz secured a large, front-page Personal Journal feature in The Wall Street Journal that included a color photo of the ON-Q device in January 2004. Schwartz had been speaking to and corresponding with Personal Health Reporter Amy Dockser-Marcus for the better part of the year. Marcus’s interest was peaked when Schwartz arranged for her to interview Dr. Robert Dowling, a world-renowned heart surgeon, and he discussed the issues that he has seen with the use of narcotics following surgery.
- ON-Q’s momentum is palpable, and both I-Flow’s vice president of marketing and CEO repeatedly credit the targeted national public relations effort. With a total advertising price equivalency in the millions, the placements have helped open doors forI-Flow's sales force, enabling reps to schedule physician meetings faster. Patients, such as a 70-year-old man facing prostatectomy surgery in Alabama who heard about ON-Q on the radio, are now asking physicians about it, and surgeons are in a position where they simply must learn about the treatment. The sales force has reported that merely sharing The Wall Street Journal article with physicians has provided near instant credibility, making a relatively small company appear on par with its larger competitors. I-Flow’s stock jumped 19 percent the day the feature appeared and is up from $2 to more than $15 for the year.
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