Roche

A short drama following a patient and a Roche scientist, made to show Roche’s own people how much work it takes to get a medicine from idea to patient.

The brief

Roche, working with Virgo Health, wanted a short film to help its own people appreciate the Roche pipeline and the monumental effort of the whole team in getting a medicine from an idea to the people who need it.

It was made to premiere at Roche’s internal pipeline event and to be shown in induction training for new starters.

The idea

Two lives, linked but kept apart until the end. A patient with a neurological condition who needs an effective treatment, and a Roche scientist working tirelessly to find one. Their stories are shown separately until they meet in an unexpected encounter.

We told it as drama rather than explainer, a humanised account of drug discovery designed to create empathy and inspiration. The message was that every person at Roche contributes to its purpose: doing now what patients need next.

Research for the film turned up Roche’s own numbers: bringing a single medicine to patients takes, on average, more than seven million hours of work, 6,587 experiments and between five and twelve years.

The production

Blonde filmed over two days at locations across London: a studio, a family home, a hospital and Clissold Park.

Actors played the patient and his family. Real Roche scientists took part too, including in the role of the scientist and as cameo colleagues in scenes showing a failed trial and the analysis of DNA and RNA data. None of them speak, so the emotion comes through image alone.

The result

A short film that puts a human face on drug discovery for Roche’s own teams, from the scientists at the bench to the patients at the bedside.

Blonde’s role

Film production, casting and post-production.

Credits

Client: Roche
Agency: Virgo Health
Production: Blonde