CareDx, a publicly traded transplant diagnostics and patient management provider, approached CURA Strategies about developing a thought leadership campaign in the Fall of 2018 with the following goals:

• Improve the lives of people living with transplants
• Build awareness and loyalty for the CareDx brand
• Create a more favorable market environment for CareDx products

Our winning proposal offered this concept: Leverage an issue-based campaign to build awareness and loyalty for the CareDx brand and position the company as the leading advocate in the transplant community through the following strategies:

• Uniquely brand the efforts
• Humanize the issue and bring to life the patient perspective through storytelling
• Engage and recruit third parties to validate and support the campaign
• Build and activate a community of advocates
• Serve as the conduit to the community for influencers and media

Within three months, we had identified our issue and launched Honor the Gift, a national patient-centered campaign created and managed by CURA Strategies and supported by a coalition of kidney and transplant organizations. The goal of the campaign is to extend Medicare coverage of immunosuppressive medications for kidney transplant recipients. From legislative strategies to stakeholder engagement and integrated communications, CURA Strategies brought new life into an issue that many in the community had deprioritized due to nearly two decades of failed attempts at addressing the issue.

CURA Strategies has united a coalition of 32 organizations to support the initiative, including the National Kidney Foundation, the American Society of Transplant Surgeons, the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation and Donate Life America. Additionally, CURA is working behind the scenes with every major relevant professional society, including the American Society of Nephrology and American Society of Transplantation.

Advocacy highlights

• Secured the introduction of the Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act (Immuno Bill) in both the House and the Senate
• Recruited over 130 cosponsors between the two chambers
• Secured a letter of support from the Congressional Black Caucus with over 20 Members of Congress signing on to support the Immuno Bill
• Secured a letter of support from over 195 clinicians within the kidney transplant field in support of the Immuno Bill
• Received 8,009 signatures on the Honor the Gift pledge and
• Over 7,200 letters have been sent to Congress through our digital advocacy tool

Digital highlights

• The designated campaign microsite org has attracted over 32,000 unique visitors
• Secured nearly 11,000 unique pledges and letter submissions
• Relying largely on organic content, the campaign’s social media platforms have reached over 1 million peopleacross the country

Media coverage

• Secured a number of national earned media placements, including in Kaiser Health News, NPR and STAT News
• CURA worked with The Gifted Life podcast producers to record an episode that featured the Honor the Gift campaign with interviews by a well-known surgeon in transplantation, Dr. Matthew Cooper, and our key patient advocate Monica Fox. The podcast generated over 500 digital advocacy activations in five days