Bryan Czyzewski

Cougar Biotechnology: Stalking Prostate Cancer

I hope Dendreon's Provenge can deliver on its promises. THe 34% increase in survival rate is very promising. My one qualm is that placebo in their phase III trials were not done with their immune adjuvant, therefore the response rate you see may not be due to the treatment process that isolated APC's receive but to the stimulatory effects of the GM-CSF. If this is the case, then the treatment could potentially be even more promising. Anything that improves time to progression and survival is a welcome treatment in HRPC. Both treatments Dendreon's and Cougar's fall short, time to progression for Provenge and no survival statistics for abiraterone.

Cougar Biotechnology: Stalking Prostate Cancer

Provenge looks great but has some drawbacks too, as does GVAX. Both require infusions with GM-CSF, an immune stimulator. Many results with immune modulation therapies can be actually attributed to the immune boost seen with adjuvant. Provenge and GVAX also seems to work well only in a subset of the HRPC patients.