Zytgia - the Perfect Cure for Prostate Cancer??!!

In the most recent blog posts at http://abiraterone.blogspot.com/ there is what purports to be an interview with Dr. Gerry Potter, the man who first synthesized abiraterone, now known as Zytiga. Those who don’t mind an extra mouse click can check here to see the full posting,

abiraterone.blogspot.com/2012/10/exclusive-interview-with-prof-potter.html

but what alarmed me was the following:

“I'm set to receive royalties from the sales of Zytiga so it will be nice at long last to actually receive some financial reward for discovering this important anticancer agent. I knew when I first discovered Zytiga that it would one day become a blockbuster. The results were so good it couldn't fail. Extreme Potency. No toxicity. Very well tolerated so you cant go wrong. What more do you want, this is the perfect cure for Prostate Cancer.”

He calls it a cure? Did I read that right? Does the tone of this interview sound weird to anyone else? His attitude is much too dismissive of the fact that we still don’t know much about Zytiga and how well it can work with different people.

In fact, earlier today, the blog posted some thoughts about How Long Zytiga works.

abiraterone.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-long-does-zytiga-work.html

The unnamed author admits that Zytgia doesn’t work in 20% of the people who take it. Further:

The longest Zytiga survivor is 8 years from the Phase I clinical trials in 2004.

There are several 6 year survivors still taking Zytiga from the Phase II clinical trials.

There are hundreds of 4 year survivors on Zytiga from the 1000 cohort of the Phase III trials.

In my mind, this doesn’t constitute a “perfect cure for Prostate Cancer”! A perfect cure would be an drug that makes your cancer go away and it doesn't ever come back as long as you live!

The posts are interesting nonetheless. However, the blog in general has a snarky tone when talking about Xtandi and Provenge, as if it's trying to sell to the investors rather than communicate with the people who actually have the disease.

If you go through the previous postings on the blog, Raddad, you'll see all these postings about Zytiga in clinical combinations with a ton of other inhibitors and therapies. That's very encouraging. Perhaps within a year or two, the days of sequencing single drugs at a time will be over and we'll have potent combos.

It is look like Johnson@Johnson is doing very good job promoting Zytiga and trash other drugs ( set a blog with only one person). With billions it is not difficult to do. You can even call it a cure for prostate cancer. The true is Zytiga is good drug, but no an excellent drug. This drug has a big problem in the last trial ( prechemo one) . And in my opinion far behind Provenge and Xtandi by effectiveness.

Post Edited (HOPENEVERDIE) : 10/24/2012 8:09:24 AM (GMT-6)

" I discovered Zytiga 22 years ago almost to this day on the 1 st of November 1990 and here we are in 2012 and only in June this year was it approved for use in NHS hospital in the UK where it was discovered. It is ironic that it has taken US dollars and American Corporate backing to be sold back to the UK at an enormous premium. This could have been taken straight out of my lab in the Institute of Cancer Research within the Royal Marsden Hospital and given to the patients in the Hospital 20 years ago if we didnt live in such a crazy screwed up corporate society."

What a system...

abiraterone.blogspot.com/2012/10/fate-of-zytiga-in-human-body.html

There ya go, MSWorriedwife

As MsWorryWart pointed out the blog on how to take Zytiga is in direct opposition to her hubby and my doctors instructions.

From the Zytiga website itself

Instructions for Taking ZYTIGA®

Take ZYTIGA® and prednisone exactly as your doctor tells you.
The standard daily dose of ZYTIGA® is 1,000 mg (4 tablets) once daily. ZYTIGA® is used along with prednisone. The standard dose for prednisone is 5 mg twice daily. Both medications are taken by mouth.
It's important to follow your doctor's dosing instructions and stay on the treatment schedule to give ZYTIGA® the best opportunity to work.
ZYTIGA® is an oral, once-daily medication that can be taken at home.
Take ZYTIGA® on an empty stomach.
Do not take ZYTIGA® with food. No food should be eaten two hours before and one hour after taking ZYTIGA®. Taking ZYTIGA® with food may cause more of the medicine to be absorbed by the body than is needed and this may cause side effects.

[url]http://www.zytiga.com/taking_zytiga/[\url]

Hugs

Bud

We will beat this crap

OK, SOMEONE is lying/deceiving/gypping!

If, as the "blog" said, all aspects of Zytiga absorption has been studied and understood, then SOMEONE should be able to properly calculate how to get the 50mg of Zytiga into the bloodstream without using/wasting/paying-for the other 950 mg each day!!! I mean, COME ON! Presumably one could say, "take one 250mg Zytiga pill with exactly blah-blah ounces of milk, and the proper daily 50mg of the drug will be released". How simple would THAT be?? That would cut the costs, too, to 1/4 present $$$ (or last four times as long).

Or, the blog is full of....it.

I agree, I think the blog is a PR stunt. It has some very useful information about clinical trials but there's a very ugly anti-Xtandi and anti-Provenge slant to it that makes the whole thing suspect.