In previous years, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. would draw attention to Rare Disease Day on the last day of February by doing the usual things that drug companies do: host podcasts and panel discussions, or maybe publish articles or LinkedIn posts.
This year, though, Takeda got a little zany. The company teamed up with the Boston Celtics to send 100 small, squishy zebras airborne from the rafters during a break in play at the C’s-Cavaliers game on Friday at the TD Garden, roughly a mile from the Japanese drugmaker’s North American headquarters in Kendall Square. The zebras all had parachutes attached to slow their descent, so the scene looked a bit like giant jellyfish floating in the air above the Garden crowd.
Zebras, for the uninitiated, are considered a symbol for rare diseases, in part because of the medical maxim around diagnoses that goes: if you hear hoofbeats, don’t assume it’s a zebra. (Translation: Think of the more common ailments first before diagnosing someone with a rare disease.)
Heather Dean, Takeda’s senior vice president of its neuroscience business, said the Takeda marketing team tried to be a little more creative this year. The crew also considered hiring someone to dress up in a zebra costume for a dunk contest, though that idea didn’t quite make it to the parquet. Takeda’s sponsorship included messaging on the Jumbotron to explain to the basketball fans why zebras were descending upon them. The people who caught a zebra could bring it to a Takeda table in the concourse to get a Celtcs hat; Celtics jerseys were given to people who caught five golden zebras that were released at the same time.
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Takeda is not normally a Celtics sponsor, but Dean indicated “this could be the start of a beautiful relationship” between the team and the company, which happens to be the largest life sciences employer in the state. Takeda sells treatments in the US for more than 25 rare diseases, defined as one that affects fewer than 200,000 people in this country.
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“This is not just about having a fun zebra drop,” Dean said. “This is about engendering curiosity.”
This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston’s business scene.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.