Crohn's & Me, a UCB Website Created by Heartbeat Digital, Wins Silver Medal at the 2008 Medical Marketing & Media Awards.

NEW YORK -- The Crohn's & Me website (www.crohnsandme.com) won a Silver Award for "Best Website" at the Medical Marketing & Media Awards Dinner, one of the pharmaceutical marketing industry's most prestigious ceremonies. Held at New York's celebrated Tavern on the Green, the night honored the medical industry's most creative and innovative marketing campaigns.

Crohn's & Me, designed and built by Heartbeat Digital for UCB, offers one of the richest online communities for sufferers of Crohn's disease - which number over 500,000 in America alone - as well as their family and friends. The site gives voice to a variety of Crohn's patients, while activists, celebrities and athletes can be seen discussing their experiences with the disease. Throughout the life of the site, it has also offered scholarships for students with Crohn's, a national Crohn's Tour, and a chance to speak to lawmakers on behalf of CD patients.

"The challenge for us was not just to create an entertaining and memorable campaign, but to create one that would truly benefit those with Crohn's," said Bill Drummy, the founder and CEO of Heartbeat. "This award acknowledges that we've succeeded. Not only does the site break ground within this disease category, it has influenced how pharma marketers view the entire channel."

"Crohn's & Me elevates the potential of a patient-centric pharma website, from a purely marketing-driven effort to a service that really benefits the community," Jan Jeffords-Schenck, a Senior Project Manager at UCB added. "And because it's so sensitive to patients' needs, we've been able to build an extremely powerful database of nearly 100,000 loyal, engaged and receptive people who care passionately about Crohn's disease."

When looking back on the history of the site, Janelle Starr, VP of Production, remembers, "when we launched the site, we hoped to attract about 11,000 members in the first 6 months. We got there in half that time. So far, 96,000 have registered for the Crohn's & Me community. Those numbers really speak to value that patients find in the site."

The MM&M Awards recognize "exceptional creativity and marketing effectiveness in healthcare." The independent panel of judges, who represent the gamut of sectors in the industry, received a record 830 submissions this year, from agencies and publications of all sizes. Medical Marketing & Media magazine acknowledges, "The only way to get your hands on an award is to impress the judges with the quality of your work."

Heartbeat Digital is an interactive marketing and software company specializing in sales and marketing solutions for the pharmaceutical, consumer products and travel industries.

The agency's healthcare clients include Abbott Laboratories, Amgen, Baxter Bioscience, Biogen, BD, Eli Lilly and Company, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Lifeline Schering, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, Merck, Millennium, Organon, Roche Diagnostics, sanofi-aventis and UCB Pharma.

Heartbeat Digital has won numerous awards, including 14 of the medical marketing industry's top honors. Winning campaigns have included patient-oriented Web sites on Crohn's disease and diabetes, a physician information site on asthma, and an online advertising campaign supporting a drug for erectile dysfunction.

Heartbeat Digital is a privately held company headquartered in New York, with offices in London, Brussels and Geneva, and a technology center in Pune, India. For more information, contact Heartbeat Digital at 460 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. Telephone: [phone]. Website: www.heartbeatdigital.com.