Active Biotech/Ipsen’s prostate cancer drug mechanism clouds opinion of improving overall survival

Active Biotech (STO:ACTI) and Ipsen’s (EPA:IPN) tasquinimod has experts uncertain on whether it can delay time to death in prostate cancer patients, experts told BioPharm Insight. Although tasquinimod demonstrated the ability to delay disease worsening, they were ambiguous on whether tasquinimod’s ability to limit the formation of new blood vessels, or angiogenesis, can stop tumour growth and progression.

In prostate cancer, several antiangiogenic drugs have failed to translate benefits in delaying disease worsening, or progression-free survival (PFS), into a delay in time to death, or overall survival (OS), the experts noted. Thus far, tasquinimod’s demonstration of therapeutic benefits in clinical trials, or efficacy results, could be driven by a number of other proposed drug mechanisms.

Tasquinimod is in a Phase III trial - the final clinical stage - for the treatment of metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). The primary endpoint is PFS, and the secondary endpoint is OS. PFS is the time after treatment that a patient lives without the cancer getting worse, where as OS is the length of time from the start of treatment for which those patients are still alive.

Trial enrolment completed in December 2012.

More: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/676b24c2-7baa-11e2-95b9-00144feabdc0.html

< Prev		Next >

Articles - News