Biotech Values

[DewDiligence]

Zytiga impresses in neo-adjuvant prostate cancer:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/health/zytiga-a-prostate-cancer-drug-does-well-in-trial.html

In a small clinical trial, six months of treatment with the drug, Johnson & Johnson’s Zytiga, added to standard therapy, eliminated or nearly eliminated tumors in about one-third of men whose disease had not yet spread beyond the prostate gland but was considered likely to do so.

… “This is the first time we’ve seen this degree of complete response in prostate cancer given neoadjuvant therapy,” Dr. Nicholas J. Vogelzang, who represents the American Society of Clinical Oncology, said during a telephone news conference…

…Among the men who took Zytiga for 24 weeks, 10 percent had a pathological complete response, meaning no tumor was detected upon surgery, and another 24 percent had a near-complete response, meaning only a tiny amount of tumor was present. In the group that received 12 weeks of Zytiga, 4 percent had a complete response, and 11 percent had a near-complete response. Lupron alone has not been shown to produce such a high rate of responses…

… Wall Street is focusing less on this study than on a larger one in which Zytiga was used for metastatic prostate cancer, but before chemotherapy rather than afterward. If this trial succeeds, Zytiga should become a competitor to the Dendreon drug Provenge.