Dendreon, the manufacture of the only FDA approved immunologic therapy for prostate cancer had been burdened with significant debt. The debt came from their R&D of Provenge, their seeking FDA approval and the construction of three manufacturing plants to produce the treatment. Sadly, the company was unable to get its income ahead of its debt burden and was forced to seek bankruptcy protection.
Dendreon was put up for sale by public auction supervised by the U.S. Bankruptcy court. It was announced yesterday that the bidding process has been completed and another pharmaceutical company, Valeant will acquire the rights to Dendreon’s assets going forward.
Malecare welcomes the purchase, as we believe that this purchase will be good for the prostate cancer community. Malecare believes that Valeant intends to continue the production of Provenge for men with prostate cancer. We hope that our optimism for the future of Provenge is well placed.
Joel T. Nowak, M.A., M.S.W.
Dear Sir,
I appreciate your article regarding who should and should not take Provenge. I am a 74-year male who survived Lung Cancer, and Neuroendocrine Cancer(in my small intestine) in 2004 and 2012 respectively. In June 2015, I was diagnosed with Advanced Prostate Cancer. By the time the cancer was discovered, it had already spend to many places, including number of places in my bone, and the liver. I was given Hormone therapy with Casodex and Zoladex. The initial results were good and the lesion in liver disappeared. My PSA dropped from 49 down to 0.5. However, in the last four months, my PSA has doubled every month and it is at 9.5 currently and I began to have sever pain in my right hip area. It became clear that Casodex is no longer effective for controlling my prostate cancer growth.
I checked into the Biopsy report for my Prostate Cancer and there was no Gleason scope given. However, because the spread, and progression of the cancer after the hormone therapy was aggressive, I can only assume that my Gleason score is high. According to this article, I am not a good candidate for the Provenge treatment and I should take Zytiga with prednisone or Xtandi.
I will appreciate very much if you would add more comments regarding my Prostate cancer treatment. Thank you
John
John,
I am not a doctor, but I feel that Xtandi is superior to Zytiga. It doesn’t require the use of predniscone which has its own side effects and Xtandi has been shown to delay additional bone mets and it does extend life.
Joel