Easing prostate cancer

There's been a few prostate cancer pieces brewing, so I'll combine the two topics into an enlarged (prostate) posting. Okay, that was uncalled for, especially for such a serious disease, but I couldn't resist.

A venture capital company, Dendreon, that develops biotech drugs that target cancer, is currently conducting Phase III trials into a vaccine for the disease. As this article details, an advisory panel to the FDA recommended approval, but afterwards two panel members suggested a go slow approach. Here's where it gets interesting: These two panel members then came under fire for possible conflicts of interest. Congress was asked to investigate, they refused, and now there is a bit of a storm-Read the bottom of the Pharmalot blog for the comments from organizations that say that 20,000 people have died due to a few doctors that have financial interests in competitor companies.

A couple of weeks ago, Dendreon had a press release that they hope will change the FDA's mind and fasttrack the vaccine-again a report from Pharmalot (gotta love that blog.)

Another development in prostate cancer care looks to reverse the side effects to androgen-deprivation therapy that is used to treat prostate cancer (One good thing about writing this blog-it makes me really interested to learn more about what I write about-I guess it's a good thing that "Learner" is one of my strengths according to this book.) The drug, toremifene, has previously been marketed and used under the brand name Fareston. However, according to a Phase III trial from the company, GTx, there is a possibility that it can also be used to lower the incidence of fractures. More info is also on the WSJ blog.