Ciappenelli Replaces Tim Healey at Sepracor
January 02, 2007
By Jim Edwards
Rob Ciappenelli has replaced Timothy Healey as executive director of central nervous system marketing at Sepracor, the company that markets insomnia drug Lunesta, sources said.
Ciappenelli was previously senior director for physician marketing on Lunesta. The move places Ciappenelli atop the marketing department for Lunesta, which at $300 million in annual spending is the single largest drug brand ad budget in the U.S.
Jay Popli, who had been director of Lunesta’s consumer marketing under Healey, was promoted to senior director of consumer marketing under Ciappenelli, sources said. Healey left the company in December to take a post at Advanced Magnetics in Cambridge, Mass.
Ciappenelli did not return immediately return a call for comment; Popli declined to comment.
Ciappenelli had a lower profile at the company than Popli did. Popli and his former boss Healey were jointly named Brandweek Marketers of the Year in October, and Popli has frequently accepted awards for Lunesta’s consumer marketing at drug industry functions.
The moves come at a time when the Lunesta campaign is in flux. A source said Sepracor (based in Marlborough, Mass.) will break new TV ads in a day or so.
The new creative is not a marked departure for the brand—it will still show the luna moth visiting people’s beds at night and happy former insomniacs falling asleep, a source said. But new executions start off from the point of view of the sleeper, in the dark, and only later show the traditional Lunesta imagery.
A source disagreed with an analyst from Merrill Lynch who had reported just prior to Christmas that the new marketing was based on positive results in studies of Lunesta sued by sufferers of depression, anxiety and menopause. That was “not correct” one source said.
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