rBIO biosimilar insulin advances to clinical trials — strategy by ZingPR
Project overview
Biotech breakthroughs are exciting, but getting media attention in a crowded space is tough. Here's how we overcame those challenges for rBIO.
Houston-based rBIO, a biotech startup on a mission to reduce the cost of insulin by 30%, wanted to announce an important step toward commercialization of its biosimilar insulin, R-biolin. rBIO's lead biologic drug, R-biolin, aims to disrupt the $90bn insulin market through a biosimilar manufacturing technique that can be massively scaled to yield significant cost savings
rBIO Chief Executive Officer Cameron Owen (left) and Chief Scientific Officer Deenadayalan Bakthavatsalam (right)
The story so far
rBIO was co-founded in 2020 by Cameron Owen after completing his graduate healthcare management degree at Johns Hopkins. There, in 2018, his idea for a pharmacogenomics company won "Most Original Idea" at the university’s business plan competition. Cameron had earlier secured a B.Sc in microbiology from UA University of Arizona.
For the next two years, rBIO's small team of scientists combined their skills in genetics, bioengineering, and bioinformatics toward achieving their goal of reducing the cost of insulin by 30 percent.
With very little seed money, they progressively optimized their technique and achieved a viable scale-up target in mid-2022.
A major milestone
Now, rBIO announces that it has completed all the required analytical characterizations of its insulin biosimilar, R-biolin. This positions the company to file for the 351(k) drug submission process — an abbreviated licensure pathway for biological products shown to be biosimilar to or interchangeable with an FDA-licensed reference product.
Next stop: signing a CRO to manage a clinical study to determine whether R-biolin has the same pharmacological and immunogenicity properties as a reference drug, Novo Nordisk’s Novolin.
PR strategy
Because rBIO was a relatively unknown startup, we knew gaining media attention would require more than a standard press release. Our strategy involved a mix of pre-announcement outreach and targeted media relations.
Ten days before the announcement, we sent a personalized email to a list of journalists specializing in biotech, drug development, and healthcare innovation. We emphasized rBIO's mission to make insulin more affordable and highlighted the upcoming clinical trial milestone.
On the day of the announcement, we distributed the embargoed press release. To make the story more compelling, we offered journalists an exclusive interview with rBIO's founder, Cameron Owen. This allowed us to address the technical aspects of the biosimilar development and add a personal element to the story.
Top-tier media coverage results
