Sepracor Goes Silent

What’s going on in Marlborough, Mass.? I got a call from Sepracor’s PR firm, Mosaic Health, telling me Sepracor were no longer allowing their marketing execs to do press interviews. This is a shame. They just got a new chief marketer, Rob Ciappenelli, and I’d like to find out a little bit more about the man who controls the largest drug brand advertising budget on the planet (currently $300 million a year being spent behind Lunesta). We know he comes from the professional side of the business, not the consumer side. One is tempted to suggest that Sepracor’s new silence is ominous: Lunesta has had trouble breaking 13% in new prescription share (NRX, geddit?!); the company has also been embroiled in the stock options backdating scandal; and Sepracor recently lost chief marketer Tim Healey right after he was named Brandweek’s Marketer of the Year. Perhaps the appointment of Ciappenelli, rather than Lunesta’s consumer marketing chief, Jay Popli (another Brandweek Marketer of the Year), indicates that Sepracor feels it needs to increase its credibility with doctors rather than patients.