Sanofi drug boosts prostate cancer survival 30pct

Sanofi-Aventis's experimental chemotherapy drug Jevtana increases survival by 30 per cent in men with prostate cancer whose tumours no longer respond to standard treatment, according to new research. The results from an international Phase III clinical trial boost prospects for a drug that may go some way to offsetting the French drugmaker's loss of patent protection on its existing blockbuster cancer medicine Taxotere later this year. Sanofi had already said Jevtana, or cabazitaxel, met its goal in the 755-patient trial, but analysts were waiting to see the details. Expectations had been for an improvement of 20 to 30 per cent in overall survival. Study leader Oliver Sartor of Tulane Cancer Center in New Orleans said the "unequivocal" survival benefit gave hope to men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer whose disease continues to grow despite standard chemotherapy. "This agent will provide an important new therapeutic option for men with this advanced form of prostate cancer," he said, presenting the findings at an American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in San Francisco. Therapies that reduce the production of testosterone are often used to treat advanced prostate cancer, and when cancer progresses even in the absence of testosterone it is then treated with Taxotere, also known as docetaxel.