Johnson
& Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) faces stiff competition in the battle for prostate
cancer market share. The company's Zytiga is enjoying rapid sales growth in
second- and third-line treatment as people live longer and the number of cases
diagnosed and treatments prescribed climbs. Zytiga's market growth has caught
the attention of big pharmaceutical companies and a slate of young
up-and-comers.
Approvals have
pushed Zytiga higher
J&J
landed approval from the Food and Drug Administration for Zytiga as a treatment
for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, or mCRPC, in April 2011.
The approval gave Zytiga, which is dosed orally, pole position in prescriptions
for patients who had previously been treated -- and failed -- with intravenous
docetaxol. The approval stemmed from positive phase 3 trial data, which showed
that patients treated with Zytiga had overall survival of 15.8 months versus
11.2 months for patients treated with placebo.
In
December, Zytiga got another boost when the FDA approved the drug as a
treatment that could be used before chemotherapy. That decision essentially
elevated Zytiga into a sure-footed second-line treatment. In a trial of
patients who had not been treated with chemotherapy, overall survival was 35.3
months versus 30.1 months on placebo. While overall survival didn't meet
statistical significance, Zytiga did significantly improve the amount of time
patients were able to postpone taking opiates for pain and for having to
initiate chemotherapy. In follow-up data released by J&J in February, those
patients saw a 47% statistically significant improvement in disease
progression, with median radiographic progression-free survival of 16.5 months
versus 8.3 months for the control arm. Read
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