Medivation purchases promising anti prostate cancer compounds

The compounds were identified by Dr Charles Sawyers at the University of California, Los Angeles. Medivation intends to begin clinical development with these compounds by the end of 2006.

The current standard of care for treating metastatic prostate cancer includes drugs that block the ability of testosterone to fuel the growth of prostate cancer cells. However, after an average of two to three years of treatment, virtually all metastatic prostate cancer becomes resistant to hormone therapy. This stage is known as hormone-refractory prostate cancer(HRPC), which has very limited treatment options. Chemotherapy is often used but extends survival modestly, typically by only a few months.

Dr Sawyers discovered that one of the important mechanisms by which resistance develops is over-expression of the androgen receptor. This finding was important in guiding the design of potential new therapeutic agents to treat HRPC.

Based on this key discovery, Dr Sawyers in collaboration with Dr Michael Jung, in UCLA’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, rationally designed a series of more than 160 novel small molecule compounds to bind to and block the androgen receptor in a manner designed to treat HRPC. Their tests of the compounds in human HRPC cells found that several of the compounds appeared to inhibit the growth of those cells better than Casodex, a leading hormonal therapy that generated more than $1 billion in global sales in 2004.

“The MDVN 300 compounds hold potential to help HRPC patients who currently face largely ineffective treatment options. These compounds were identified through Dr Sawyers’ pioneering work to learn the reasons prostate cancer patients become resistant to hormone therapy, and we are quite enthusiastic about the pre-clinical data Dr Sawyers has generated with them,” said Dr David Hung, president and chief executive officer of Medivation.