An open-label study of Sipuleucel-T (Provenge) is ongoing at 8 centers across the USA. This is a Phase 2 Study enrolling men with Metastatic Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC).
The aim of this study is to measure the immune responses to treatment with sipuleucel-T (Provenge). All participants will receive the drug. ...continue reading Provenge Trial Ongoing & Recruiting At Eight US Centers
Reuters and WAll Street Journal report today that Dendreon plans to seek US FDA approval for Provenge prostate cancer vaccine in November. Dendreon "expects regulators to act on the application by the middle of next year, the company said on Thursday."
To start from an updated report in the Wall Street Journal, which adds this information to Reuters' coverage of Dendreon 's share prices today. The points are excerpted and reordered: ...continue reading Dendreon to seek Provenge approval in November – Reuters
Oncologist Dr. Howard I. Scher has received a death threat for opposing immediate FDA approval of Dendreon's Provenge therapeutic vaccine for prostate cancer. Another oncologist who opposes approval of Provenge without completion of an ongoing clinical trial, Dr. Maha Hussain, has received unspecified threats.
...continue reading Prostate Cancer Doctor Receives Death Threat Over Provenge
Jan Manarite of Raise a Voice Campaign writes:
Prostate cancer patients have been watching for the prostate cancer/Provenge story on ABC World News with Charles Gibson. I just got a call from Dr Moyad that ABC called the prostate cancer patient who was interviewed for that story, and informed him that it would air Monday night, June 4th. This appears to be a commitment. Did ABC wait for our June 4th DC rally?
...continue reading ABC-TV Provenge Story Expected to Air Monday June 4
Dendreon announced today that the FDA will accept "either a positive interim or final analysis of survival" from its ongoing Phase III randomized clinical trial of Provenge immunotherapy for androgen independent prostate cancer.
In a press release, the company said it "has received confirmation that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will accept either a positive interim or final analysis of survival from its ongoing IMPACT study to supplement the Biologics License Application (BLA) for PROVENGE (sipuleucel-T). This information was obtained in a recent follow up meeting with the FDA to discuss the additional clinical data required to support the licensure of PROVENGE requested by the FDA in the Complete Response Letter the Company received on May 8, 2007."
...continue reading Dendreon Says FDA Will Accept Either Interim or Final Analysis
Seattle P-I reporter DAN RICHMAN in an article updated tonight writes:
Seattle-based Dendreon Corp. will delay releasing its much-anticipated Provenge drug to fight prostate cancer until at least next year and possibly until 2010, spokeswomen said Thursday.
Because of that delay, the company Thursday cut 15 percent of its 250-person work force, laying off the roughly 40 staffers who were preparing to begin marketing Provenge later this year, said one spokeswoman, Monique Greer, in an interview Thursday morning.
The Food and Drug Administration last week unexpectedly declined to approve Provenge, Dendreon's only product, without more data supporting the drug's effectiveness.
"We expect interim data in 2008, but it's event-driven, by deaths or survival, so it could be 2010 until we have final-survival analysis," Greer said in an interview Thursday morning. The drug will make it to the market "at the earliest in 2009, potentially," she said.
She said the company plans to meet with the FDA in the near future and will base its next steps on the results of that meeting.
Full Story Seattled PI, Dendreon will Delay Provenge...
Dendreon's CEO Mitchell Gold traded some of his stock during the high period following the FDA Advisory panel vote on his company's prostate cancer immunotherapy sipuleucal-T (Provenge). Gold told the WSJ Health blog that he sold "less than 20%" of his holdings in the company following the upbeat FDA advisory panel vote. "it's all public," he said, without elaborating.
More of a surprise is to see that Steve Fleischmann, one the patients who spoke passionately to the FDA committee, did the same:
Before the stock tanked some savvy investors cashed in. One of them was businessman Steve Fleischmann, who became a prostate cancer patient, activist and Dendreon shareholder all in the same year. "I bought Dendreon in 2003;I've owned it for years," he told the Health Blog. But he shed some of his shares after Dendreon surged at the end of March on a panel of experts' recommendation that FDA approve the vaccine. He declined to quantify his holdings or profits, but said, "I wanted to take some of my chips off the table so I wasn't so invested. It's natural."
Still, Fleischmann decried the protracted tug of war among investors in the company: "The sad thing is that Dendreon became more of a stock play than a humanistic play -- a game between longs and shorts -- and all about padding people's pockets."
