At the recent European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress in Stockholm, 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 (Alpharadin). The real significance of this coming to you soon drug is that it will be the first bone treatment for advanced prostate cancer has shown any survival benefit. Not denosumab (Xgeva) or zoledronic acid (Zometa), the only currently approved bone treatments, have demonstrated any survival benefit.

Making the results of the trial more interesting, unlike the recent approved treatments, cabazitaxel (Jevtana) and abiraterone acetate (Zytiga), t