Prostate Cancer Research - Good News and Bad News

I read somewhere that Medicare alone spends over one billion dollars a year on just ADT drugs specific to PC treatment...It was one of the fastest growing expenditures..

The ACSO cancer meeting is starting this week with new reports.
An article I saw today about a way to try to control costs of new meds:
Reuters
Ziopharm seeks lower cancer drug prices
Wed, Jun 1 2011

By Bill Berkrot

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ziopharm Oncology Inc's Chief Executive Jonathan Lewis has an idea that could shake up the biotechnology business -- produce less expensive new cancer drugs.
"Part of our philosophy from the very get-go has been low cost," Lewis told Reuters in an interview. "Keep the cost of goods down, cost of development down, cost of the drugs down."

Lewis said his company's most advanced drug in development, palifosfamide for sarcoma and lung cancer, can be a $1 billion a year seller even if reasonably priced.
But the linchpin to Ziopharm producing less expensive biotech drugs is an experimental new technology known as synthetic biology developed by its partner Intrexon Corp.

Lewis sees synthetic biology transforming biotech drug manufacture the way Henry Ford's assembly line changed automobile production.
"This has the potential to revolutionize how we make drugs, to get cost down, down, down," Lewis said on Wednesday.
"The world is changing; the U.S. is changing. Very expensive drugs are going to struggle," he said.

With the Intrexon technology, DNA is assembled from stored parts using robotics and programed to stimulate production of specific cancer killing proteins inside a tumor. The protein is activated or turned off by a pill to control toxicity.
The current expensive and complicated biotech production model involves protein based medicines manufactured in huge vats in carefully controlled environments.

"We don't use those great vats to create the protein, but use the person to create the protein," Lewis explained, adding that lower sales price does not necessarily mean lower profit.

"People will still make money because it costs less to do it," Lewis said.
The process has been tested in a 9-patient early stage advanced melanoma study to be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting that starts on Friday.
It will take far larger trials to determine if synthetic biology represents the revolution Lewis envisions.

Ziopharm expects to file five investigational new drug applications (INDs) seeking approval to begin human trials using synthetic biology next year and eight more in 2013.
"We think we can do this relatively quickly, within the next few years," Lewis said.

Hey and thanks Zufus.
I'm retired from a computer specialist job. I have a lot of time on my hands and like to read about trials and prevention.
I see you know a lot about the prostate cancer area and meds. Best....Robert