Animation

Medac: a calmer first injection for Metoject patients

Patient-facing animated explainer · Methotrexate self-injection

Client

Medac Pharma

Services

Animation

Year

2024

Outcome

An animated explainer that walks Metoject patients through their first self-injection at home.

Medac needed to help patients self-administer Metoject without the anxiety that usually comes with a first injection. The answer was a calm, friendly animated explainer that showed exactly what to do, frame by frame.

The outcome

An animated explainer film for Medac Pharma that walks patients through self-administering Metoject, the company's pre-filled methotrexate pen. The film does the job a leaflet can't: it shows the procedure happening, in a relatable setting, at a pace that lets the viewer follow along.

Where it lives now:

In Medac's patient communications around new Metoject prescriptions
As an onboarding resource for patients about to self-administer for the first time
As a translatable asset Medac can localise for the territories Metoject ships into

The film is built to be refreshed and re-cut as guidance changes, so it earns its place across multiple years of patient education rather than one campaign.

The challenge

Medac Pharma is a German pharmaceutical company based near Hamburg, founded in 1970, focused on oncological, urological and autoimmune therapies. Metoject is one of their flagship products: a pre-filled auto-injector that lets patients self-administer their dose at home.

The communication problem was easy to describe and hard to solve:

A patient who has never self-injected is anxious about doing it wrong
Written instructions rarely reduce that anxiety. Often they make it worse
The film had to work for first-time patients, for clinicians using it as a teaching aid, and for the family members or carers often involved in early self-administration

It also had to read as Medac, not as generic healthcare content.

Our approach

End-to-end on the film: discovery, scripting, casting, vision board, concept art, character design, storyboarding, production. We built the piece around a single illustrated character who carries the viewer through every step.

Key creative decisions:

A warm, simplified character at the centre. Not clinical, not pharma-stock, not a real photographed patient. The illustration gives Medac a character who can demonstrate the procedure without imposing identity on the viewer, so any patient can follow along comfortably.
Concept art and character development before production. Multiple sketch passes refined the character's proportions, expression and posture so the final animation felt approachable rather than instructional. Medac signed off on the look before any frame was animated.
A familiar setting. The film opens in a domestic kitchen, which is where home self-administration usually happens. Recognisable context lowers the cognitive load of learning a new procedure.
The injection itself, shown clearly. Site rotation across thigh and stomach, the pen position, the actual moment of injection. Skipping or softening any of this would defeat the purpose.
Visual language tied to Medac's brand. Colour palette, type and illustration style sit comfortably alongside the rest of Medac's patient-facing material.

What it does for Medac

The film carries the load that a leaflet can't. New Metoject patients arrive at their first self-injection with the procedure already seen and the anxiety already lower. Medac has a single asset that travels with the product, can be localised across the territories it ships into, and can be refreshed if guidance updates. One film, long shelf life, real clinical value.