Posts tagged ‘Prostate Cancer Market Intelligence’
The annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), held in Chicago earlier this month, is one of the most important meetings of the year for cancer scientists, pharma/biotech drug development and new products professionals.
Bill Sellers, in the AACR plenary session, described how Novartis are using the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE) in conjunction with the Broad Institute to identify promising new compounds.
As Sally Church, PhD noted on Pharma Strategy Blog in her post on the highlights of AACR 2012:
“What made the meeting exciting for me was the sheer number of new compounds emerging from late preclinical to early phase 1.”
Two of the many promising new drugs in early stages of development were highlighted on Biotech Strategy Blog:
AZD3514 (AstraZeneca), a selective androgen receptor down regulator (SARD) in phase 1 clinical trials for castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).
ABT-199 (Abbott), a new Bcl-2 inhibitor (that improves on navitoclax), in phase 1 drug development for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
There were many noteworthy posters presented at AACR particularly from young researchers
e.g. “Overcoming resistance to EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy in non-small cell lung cancer” was a poster that suggested the prospect of future drug development targets.
During the high quality poster and oral sessions, we met numerous people including CEOs of baby biotechs, young researchers and clinicians with an interest in translational research, including Laura Strong, Ph.D President & COO of Quintessence Biosciences (@scientre), David Woessner who was presenting his PhD research (@pinfoto) and Philippe Aftimos, MD from Belgium (@aftimosp), all of whom were actively sharing their observations during numerous sessions via Twitter during the conference.
The annual meeting is not just about basic science though, but also drug development strategy and emerging research trends, such as the automation of preclinical drug discovery, as well as the collaboration between academia and Pharma/Biotech in combination clinical trials using two novel compounds from different companies. This last trend, I am pleased to say, has already begun and will hopefully continue apace in the future.
If you were not able to attend AACR, then Sally Church aggregated all the #AACR tweets from the meeting on Pharma Strategy Blog. AACR also have webcasts of some of the sessions available, including some with free access.
We’re already looking forward to AACR 2013 in Washington, DC and the timing of the meeting means it should take place when the renowned Cherry Blossom are in full bloom. Hopefully, this will provide a great opportunity for another Pharma Strategy Blog video!
The prostate cancer market continues to evolve at a fast pace. Companies with products on the market or in development will need to adapt their marketing strategy to the changing prostate cancer market dynamics. Some of the recent news includes:
MDV3100 shows 4.8 improvement in median overall survival
Sally Church, PhD on Pharma Strategy Blog interviewed David Hung, MD CEO of Medivation and discussed the MDV3100 clinical trial data presented at ASCO GU.
Sally has been following the development of MDV3100 for a while, and previously interviewed Dr Charles Sawyers one of the co-developers.
MDV3100 showed an improvement in median overall survival of 4.8 months in advanced prostate cancer, and offers a number of significant advantages over abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) due to its different mechanism of action on the androgen receptor.
One of the advantages is it’s ability to target splice variants:
You can read more about MDV3100 on Pharma Strategy Blog.
Is ARN-509 more effective than MDV3100?
Another interesting compound in prostate cancer drug development is Aragon’s ARN-509. Recent research published in the AACR journal, “Cancer Research” suggests that ARN-509 may be a more potent androgen-receptor antagonist than MDV3100.
Whether ARN-509 will make it to market remains in question given that Medivation claim the compound was part of the intellectual property it acquired from UCLA along with what became MDV3100.
You can read more about the potential of Aragon’s ARN-509 in prostate cancer on Pharma Strategy Blog.
Radium-223 (Alpharadin) significantly prolongs time to first Skeletal Related Event
Pieter Droppert has written on Biotech Strategy Blog about the radium-223 (Alpharadin) clinical trial data presented by Dr Oliver Sartor at ASCO GU.
Alpharadin is a bone targeted radiopharmaceutical that has shown not only a significant delay in the time to first skeletal related event (SRE) but an increase in overall survival.
Dr Sartor kindly offered some clinical perspective on the data that you can read on Biotech Strategy Blog.
In case you missed it, the video interview with Dr Chris Parker at ECCO/ESMO 2011 in Stockholm offers further information on radium-223 and the ALSYMPCA trial results:
Amgen fails to convince ODAC that Xgeva should have a prostate bone mets indication
If you were following the prostate cancer news this past week, then the ODAC 12:1 vote against granting an indication for denosumab (Xgeva) for the prevention of prostate cancer bone metastases was in the news
Pieter Droppert collated the Xgeva ODAC meeting tweets on Storify if you are interested in what was live tweeted during the meeting.
Once Alpharadin is approved will radiation oncologists now get more involved in the treatment of prostate cancer and how will this impact the market dynamics? Will urologists favor MDV3100 that does not require administration of prednisone at the expense of Zytiga?
Companies will need to adapt their marketing strategy as new prostate cancer new products come to market in 2012.
Do you have a need to understand the fast moving prostate cancer market and its competitive dynamics? If so, please contact us as we offer a number of services in support of prostate cancer marketing and new products. The team at Icarus Consultants has in-depth knowledge of this therapeutic area.
Last week, Pieter Droppert wrote on Biotech Strategy Blog about what the impact of the European approval for abiraterone acetate (Zytiga®) may be on cabazitaxel (Jevtana®) sales.
Both are indicated in the post-docetaxel setting. Will physicians prescribe a convenient pill (abiraterone) as opposed to using another line of chemo (cabazitaxel)? You can read Pieter’s thoughts on Biotech Strategy Blog.
Meanwhile on Pharma Strategy Blog, Sally Church wrote an update on pharma social media. She reviewed the Zytiga healthcare professionals website and the many features that she liked.
In another post last week, Sally discussed some of the issues surrounding the drop in share price for Dendreon and possible reasons for poor sipuleucel-T (Provenge®) sales. She also discussed new research that shows the TMPRSS2:ERG gene may be a more useful marker than PSA in prostate cancer. You can read more on Pharma Strategy Blog.
Want to understand the prostate cancer market? Contact us.
As marketing strategy consultants, it’s fascinating to watch the dynamics of a pharmaceutical market in rapid evolution.
With three new therapies for prostate cancer approved last year (cabazitaxel, denosumab, sipuleucel-T) and the approval of abiraterone acetate expected this month, the prostate cancer market is a fast changing one.
This is really good news for patients, and for a disease that effects 1 in 6 men in the United States, and is the most common non-skin cancer.
Pieter Droppert on Biotech Strategy Blog has some commentary from the recent annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) on additional new products in development that may change the landscape of this disease further.
You can read more about this on Biotech Strategy Blog.