Pharma Strategy Blog

Commentary on Pharma & Biotech Oncology / Hematology New Product Development

Posts from the ‘Prostate Cancer’ category

A year in the life of Pharma Strategy Blog

By on October 31, 2011

Last week brought the first anniversary of this blog since moving to WordPress as a platform, but as luck would have it, I was snowed under with more work than usual.

Several people have asked about the stats here recently, so it seems a good time as any to do an annual review. Although this blog has been up and running since 2006, it only started on WP on October 24th 2010.

In the last twelve months, PSB has seen the following activity:

  • 614K reads, with around 50-60K reads per month
  • 337K visitors, approx. 30K visitors per month
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BOLERO2 data in breast cancer impresses at ECCO 2011

By on September 27, 2011

This year I decided to write some longer posts from the ECCO/EMCC meeting owing to the amount of potentially paradigm changing data coming out. These in depth op eds will roll out over the next few days.

Quite a few people have been asking what my picks of the conference are, so here goes, in order of Wow factor (purely from my perspective):

  1. Everolimus BOLERO-2 data in ER/PR+ HER2- breast cancer
  2. Alpharadin in advanced prostate cancer
  3. T-DM1 in HER2+ breast cancer
  4. Vismodegib phase III data in basal cell carcinoma
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What’s hot at ECCO, ESMO, EMCC in Stockholm 2011?

By on September 21, 2011

After a wild day yesterday once we realised Continental had mysteriously and unaccountably changed our flights to Stockholm from Weds to Weds to Thurs to Tues, it seems that Cinderella will be going to the ball after all.

European Multidisciplinary Cancer Conference (EMCC) here we come, whew!

There are a couple of sessions I’m particularly looking forward to this year:

    1. Presidential Symposium on Sat 25th with talks from some of the leading lights in translational research:
      • Tak Mak (U Toronto) on metabolism and cancer
      • Jose Baselga (MGH) on the challenges of personalised medicine
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Custirsen – a new treatment for castrate resistant prostate cancer?

By on August 8, 2011

I’ve been following the development of Oncogenex’s custirsen for a while based on various posters presented at meetings such as ASCO and AUA, but with the publication of phase II data in prostate cancer, it seems a good time to discuss the compound in more detail.

According to Oncogenex:

“OGX-011, also known as custirsen sodium, inhibits the production of clusterin, a protein that is associated with treatment resistance in a number of solid tumors, including prostate, breast, non-small cell lung, ovarian, and bladder cancers.”

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How picking up prostate cancer earlier may improve outcomes

By on August 4, 2011

Prostate cancer is very much in the news this morning, not all for good reasons though.

Dendreon’s Provenge launch to community oncologists did not go well

Dendreon’s stock is in free fall after the company missed it’s earnings and revenue expectations rather badly yesterday.  Adam Feuerstein of The Street has a nice overview of the 2Q earnings call for those of you interested.

There are a couple of things that come to mind though:

  1. The reimbursement may well have a broader impact on the landscape than many realise – CMS may pay for a drug or vaccine, but it doesn’t always pay for the surrounding expenses associated with it*
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Pharma and Social Media: Update on abiraterone in advanced prostate cancer

By on August 3, 2011

“Fully 71% of online Americans use video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Vimeo, up from 66% a year earlier. The use of video-sharing sites on any given day also jumped five percentage points, from 23% of online Americans in May 2010 to 28% in May 2011.”

Pew Internet (2011)

This is a trend I’ve also noticed amongst my friends over the past year, largely driven by more of them using smartphones and iPads, which make sharing and watching video a whole lot easier.

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Managing bone metastases with denosumab in prostate cancer: an interview with Dr Neal Shore

By on May 19, 2011

At the annual American Urological Association (AUA) meeting this week in Washington DC, Dr Matthew Smith from Mass General Hospital presented updated data from the phase III 147 trial comparing denosumab to placebo in managing skeletal related events (SREs) and bone metastases-free survival.   Skeletal complications are a major cause of prostate cancer morbidity.

The results were somewhat controversial, however, because while surrogate measures such as delaying time to SREs clearly show a benefit in favour of denosumab, no difference in overall survival was seen over placebo.

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Update on denosumab and SRE’s: data from the 147 trial

By on May 17, 2011

A little over ten years ago, I lost my Father to metastatic prostate cancer, a brave fight that lasted only a few years since he was diagnosed with stage IV disease.   In many ways though, it was a bittersweet moment because while it’s always heartbreaking to lose a parent, it was also a blessing that he was spared of any further pain.   In those days, the only bisphosphonates available in the UK were pamidronate (Aredia) and the awful clodronate.   The urologist managing my Father had no clue about either, so he suffered in silence instead.

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A vlog update on advanced prostate cancer from the AUA 2011 meeting

By on May 16, 2011

After attending numerous basic research and clinical updates at the American Urologic Association (AUA) annual meeting in Washington DC, it is clear that the new and emerging therapies are not going to stop at the three grand crus from 2010.

Recently, abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) was approved, but there are a number of critical issues that need to considered, including:

  1. Sequencing
  2. Combinations
  3. Cost
  4. Patient selection

As we learn more about the molecular mechanisms behind resistance to androgen receptor signaling (up and downstream) and new targets emerge, so it may be possible to improve patient outcomes in castration-resitant prostate cancer.

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How AUA have embraced social media in 2011

By on May 16, 2011

One of the recent trends at cancer conferences that I have noticed has been the creative use of social media by some cancer and urology Society organizations such as AACR, ASCO, AUA and ASH to promote their events and communicate with attendees before, during and after conferences.   It’s not all American organisations either, with some European societies also becoming increasingly digitally aware, including ESMO, EAU and EHA all gradually building an online presence beyond their websites.

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