BridgeBio turns to hip-hop to raise awareness of rare heart disease

BridgeBio (BBIO), the maker of Attruby, is relaunching its "Don't Pass on Your Heart Health" campaign with a new approach, as it seeks to close the awareness gap around transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM).

Ahead of World Amyloidosis Day at the end of the month, the company is debuting educational content on YouTube featuring Howard "H" White, an ATTR-CM patient advocate, journalist Sway Calloway, and Hip Hop Public Health founders Doug E. Fresh and Olajide Williams, a physician. The campaign draws on hip-hop, culture and trusted voices to reach communities that clinical messaging often misses.

"We wanted to bring the science out of strictly clinical settings and into the communities and everyday conversations where awareness can lead to action," said Uma Sinha, BridgeBio's chief scientific officer, in an email. "Hip Hop Public Health was a natural partner because they understand how to make complex health information accessible, relevant and actionable."

Hip Hop Public Health is a nonprofit founded in 2006 that produces educational resources built around hip-hop music. Williams and Fresh first teamed up to raise stroke awareness in Harlem with their song "Stroke Ain't No Joke," and the group has since broadened its focus to other health causes. "Hip-hop has an extraordinary ability to connect across generations and communities," Sinha said, adding that the group has shown how music can make health education more approachable "without diminishing the science behind it."

The effort addresses a diagnostic challenge. ATTR-CM is an under-recognized cause of heart failure, because symptoms such as fatigue and shortness of breath are often attributed to aging or more common cardiac conditions. White's experience with the disease will be central to the campaign, with Calloway moderating a panel that includes White and Fresh.

BridgeBio believes health information sticks best when delivered through voices and "cultural touchpoints people recognize and trust." The campaign has previously enlisted the actor Morgan Freeman, who joined White and BridgeBio in April. Sinha said Freeman's participation, as a "trusted, widely recognized voice," and the telling of White's story demonstrated "the power of storytelling to make a complex and often overlooked disease feel immediate and relevant." White, an executive at Nike (NKE), takes Attruby to manage his condition.

Throughout the month, BridgeBio will work with community partners including the Association of Black Cardiologists, 100 Black Men of the Bay Area and the National Medical Association to extend the campaign's reach through "local conversations and programming," according to Sinha.

The awareness gap is a particular concern for Black communities. As many as one in 25 Black Americans carry a gene variant associated with a higher risk of developing ATTR-CM. White's story helps "translate those statistics and clinical facts into something people can recognize in their own lives," Sinha said, and serves as a reminder to pay attention to symptoms and raise concerns with healthcare providers.

"If the program helps even one person think differently about persistent or unexplained symptoms, or encourages someone to advocate for answers, we will have accomplished something meaningful," she said.