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Posts tagged ‘Alpharadin Mechanism of Action’

Times-Square-NYC-November-11-2011This morning the 8am session at the Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium (The Greenspan Meeting) in NYC featured a review of current developments in Prostate Cancer.

The informative 1.5 hour session covered a lot of ground with the presenters reviewing clinical data for:

  • Radium-223 Chloride: a new option for CRPC (Oliver Sartor)
  • Pomegranite extract for Rising PSA (Michael Carducci)
  • XL184 in mCRPC (David Smith)
  • Optimizing patient selection for sipuleucel-T (Simon Hall)
  • Intermittent androgen suppression for prostate cancer (Laurence Klotz)
  • Lenolidomide/docetaxel in CRPC (Daniel Petrylak)

Oliver-Sartor-MD-presenting-at-NYC-Chemotherapy-Foundation-Symposium-2011The highlight, in my opinion, was Oliver Sartor’s excellent presentation on radium-223 chloride (Alpharadin) in which he cogently outlined its mechanism of action.  He explained that radium-223:

  • targets osteoblastic bone metastases by acting as a calcium mimic
  • is a bone-seeking calcium mimetic that binds to hydroxyapatite
  • has preferential uptake in areas of new bone formation

As mentioned previously on this blog, there are critical differences between an alpha emitter such as radium-223 and other bone-seeking radiopharmaceuticals that are beta emitters.

Sartor presented some excellent slides that showed how alpha emitters require much fewer DNA hits to kill cells, are short range and have a higher initial energy per particle.  In other words they are very effective at short range within the bone microenvironment, something that Chris Parker from The Royal Marsden Hospital mentioned in his interview from ECCO/ESMO in Stockholm.

Sartor concluded his Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium presentation by reflecting on “where do we go from here” in prostate cancer?  Some of his observations were:

  • We are currently in a sequencing paradigm. Drug A then B then C
  • We need to combine active agents to give the best results, that is our next challenge
  • How are we going to afford it all?

Sartor succinctly highlighted where the rubber currently hits the road, and left the audience with plenty to reflect upon. I am sure we can expect further debate on sequencing and combination possibilities at medical and scientific meetings in 2012.

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Radium-223 (Alpharadin) is a novel bone targeted treatment for advanced prostate cancer.

At the recent European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress in Stockholm (EMCC 2011), Dr Chris Parker from The Royal Marsden Hospital presented results of the phase 3 ALSYMPCA trial that showed both delayed time to first skeletal-related event (SRE) AND an overall survival (OS) benefit for those men with advanced prostate cancer taking radium-223.  This is the first time a product in the bone category has shown such a survival benefit – neither denosumab or zoledronic acid can claim that distinction.

Unlike the recent regulatory approvals for cabazitaxel (Jevtana) and abiraterone acetate (Zytiga), which focused on the post-docetaxel setting, the ALSYMPCA trial included not only those who had already received cytotoxic therapy, but also pre-docetaxel patients, who were unable to take chemotherapy.

As Dr Parker mentions in the interview that he kindly gave in Stockholm (the first video interview on Biotech Strategy Blog), radium-223, assuming it gains regulatory approval, will provide a new treatment option for the considerable population of men with bone metastases who may be too weak, too old or otherwise unable to take chemotherapy such as docetaxel.

Radium-223 is, therefore, potentially good news for this “neglected” population of prostate cancer patients.

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