As we’re coming to the end of our European Association Urology (EAU) coverage for 2015, I wanted to discuss at a rather more quirky, off-the-wall topic and look at one of the gems from the poster halls at this conference.

This year, it’s the turn of urothelial bladder cancer (UBC), a topic that doesn’t usually get much coverage or respect when it comes to new product development. Part of the challenge is the need for new targets to aim at because the particular patient population doesn’t tolerate high dose chemotherapy very well.

At ASCO last year, perhaps the surprise (and most stunning) data of the meeting was the anti-PDL1 checkpoint data (Genentech’s MPDL3280A) in refractory UBC, a disease where there are a lot of elderly and frail patients who are challenging to treat in many ways. This certainly put more attention on the disease and raised awareness to the potential opportunities for new, targeted and altogether more benign approaches to treatment. Subsequently at ESMO last fall, we also saw early data for an anti-PD1 antibody (Merck’s pembrolizumab) in advanced urothelial cancer.

Checkpoint blockade is not the only potential way to treat UBC though, so what other novel therapeutics are in development in this space?

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