Bristol Myers teams with social media influencer and singer to spark rare heart condition awareness

Bris­tol My­ers Squibb is ex­pand­ing its cam­paign for hy­per­trophic car­diomy­opa­thy, or HCM, with so­cial me­dia-dis­cov­ered singer-song­writer Sarah Cothran.

The pop­u­lar on­line in­flu­encer is speak­ing out as part of Bris­tol My­ers’ “Could It Be HCM?” cam­paign. Her moth­er, Jes­si­ca Cothran, is liv­ing with HCM and af­ter ge­net­ic test­ing, the 21-year-old found she al­so has the gene as­so­ci­at­ed with HCM.

BMS is hope­ful the Cothrans’ “com­pelling and heart­felt sto­ry” will re­sult in bet­ter aware­ness of HCM symp­toms and en­cour­age peo­ple to see a doc­tor if they ex­pe­ri­ence them, said Tom Gar­ner, se­nior VP and head of US car­dio­vas­cu­lar and es­tab­lished brands, in an email. An es­ti­mat­ed one in 500 peo­ple in the US have HCM, but a large per­cent­age are un­di­ag­nosed, ac­cord­ing to the Amer­i­can Heart As­so­ci­a­tion.

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