Biotech Strategy Blog

Today at the European Association of Urology (EAU) annual meeting in Vienna, the big news was that 2010 was a “Grand Cru” year for new treatments for advanced prostate cancer.  Not only that, but sanofi-aventis announced that they had received European marketing approval for cabazitaxel (Jevtana®) in metastatic hormone resistance prostate cancer mHRPC.

The fact that there are now several new treatments available (or expected to be available in the not too distant future) is good news for patients and physicians.

What is interesting about prostate cancer is that it in terms of incidence it is comparable to breast cancer, yet seems to end up with far fewer resources and publicity.  Prostate cancer is to men, what breast cancer is to women.

The EAU 2011 Congress website has a variety of podcasts and webcasts of presentations, and I encourage anyone interested in the latest developments to check out the wealth of information they offer.  In particular, the presentation by Professor Johann De Bono from the Royal Marsden in the high risk prostate cancer plenary session today was one of my highlights of the meeting.

The take home message I obtained from EAU in Vienna is the excitement of new treatment options for castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) such as cabazitaxel, sipuleucel-T and abiraterone.  The challenge may well be to work out how best to use these new therapies, ie in what sequence and what potential combinations may evolve in the future.

However, as Professor Bertrand Tombal from Louvain in Belgium declared, 2010 was a Grand Cru for new prostate cancer treatments.  That is good news indeed.

Posted by Pieter Droppert