Are prostate cancer drug approvals going to be affected by FDA shutdown?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has clearly indicated that extension of the current “partial shutdown” of the government will, in the not too distant future, start to delay approvals of new drugs and diagnostics and new indications for currently marketed drugs. … READ MORE …

PCaI joins with Cancer ABCs to advocate for protection of access to cancer and other drugs

For many years now, here in the USA, access to FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of cancer and other severe forms of disorder have been guaranteed under Medicare. … READ MORE …

The importance of listening to patients

A report yesterday on on the MedPage Today web site quotes Scott Gottlieb, MD, the Commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on the importance of “Listening to patients” and on how patients’ perspectives can inform drug development, drug review, and physicians’ prescribing habits. … READ MORE …

President Trump signs “right to try” legislation into law

The issue as to whether the new, so-called “right-to-try” legislation is a good idea or not is contentious and your sitemaster has no interest in getting into that discussion. What is a fact is that it has now been signed into law. … READ MORE …

Minnelide: a possible new drug for the treatment of CRPC?

According to a recently published article in The Prostate, researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a new type of drug that they believe may have high therapeutic potential in the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). … READ MORE …

“Competitive analysis” in the development of drugs for advanced prostate cancer

So the other morning your sitemaster learned that a relatively new FirstWord Therapy Report had come out that dealt with future use of biopharmaceuticals in the treatment of progressive and advanced prostate cancer. … READ MORE …

The history of the clinical trials process

Readers with an interest in how we got to today’s clinical trials processes for evaluating new drugs for the treatment of prostate cancer and other diseases might be surprised by what’s in an article in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine. … READ MORE …

Effective, safe, and as fast as reasonably possible

For readers who are interested in the processes and the speed with which potential new cancer drugs can be brought to market here in the USA (and other places around the world too), there in an important article in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine. … READ MORE …

Of mice and men all over again …

Yet another set of researchers have found yet another possible new drug that seems to have significant activity in management of prostate cancer — in mice! Whether it will have activity in men is a whole other question. … READ MORE …

What’s a clonal neoantigen when it’s at home? And why is it important?

Many readers of this blog will be aware of the development of immunotherapies like sipuleucel-T (Provenge), CAR-T for the treatment of leukemias, and checkpoint inhibitors in the treatment of some forms of solid tumor (lung cancers, melanoma). … READ MORE …

Guessing the future price of the next major breakthrough in prostate cancer treatment

In an article published on Monday September 28, in Pharmaceutical Executive (a well-known biopharmaceutical industry trade journal) a senior health care public relations executive recently laid out a detailed rationale for why the industry needs to do a better job … READ MORE …

Is drug pricing going to become an election issue in 2016?

As many of our readers will be well aware, The “New” Prostate Cancer InfoLink has long argued that, if the biopharmaceutical industry doesn’t take serious steps to manage the problems of increasing prices that come with no real commensurate value, then someone else will take those steps for them. … READ MORE …

The cost of drugs for the treatment of cancer — in the pressure cooker

According to an announcement this morning from The Mayo Clinic, a group of 118 leading cancer experts has drafted proposals for reducing the high cost of cancer drugs and voiced support for a patient-based grassroots movement demanding action on the issue. … READ MORE …

Assessing the “value” of new drugs in the treatment of [prostate] cancer

Yesterday the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued the initial draft of “a conceptual framework for assessing the value of new cancer therapies based on treatment benefits, toxicities, and costs.” ASCO is interested in getting feedback from its members and from the patient community too. … READ MORE …

Managing the costs of your prescription drugs (here in America)

As most of the readers of these blog posts will be all too well aware, the costs of prescriptions drugs for the treatment of prostate cancer have been rising significantly in recent years, … READ MORE …