Dendreon, a Seattle biotech company, is awaiting a decision due this week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to bring the nation’s first cancer treatment vaccine to market.
Called Provenge, Dendreon’s prostate cancer treatment utilizes a patient’s own immune systems against tumors.
Provenge, which is the first product of its kind to potentially come to market, is expected to help open doors for other immune-based therapies against a host of cancers.
"It gives me a lot of hope," University of Washington researcher Dr. Nora Disis, an early cancer vaccine researcher, told The Seattle Times. "I think the Dendreon vaccine will be the first in a long line we’ll see approved over the next eight years or so."
A course of Provenge, analysts estimate, will cost between $50,000 and $75,000. The treatment would initially be prescribed for the advanced form of prostate cancer that affects as many as 100,000 men a year. Nearly 200,000 American men are affected by prostate cancer every year and 27,000 die as a result.
In studies, Provenge has proven effective. In a study of more than 500 men with an advanced form of prostate cancer that had metastasized to other parts of their bodies, nearly one third of the men who received Provenge were alive after three years. Less than a quarter receiving placebos survived that long. The median survival time in that study was extended by four months, from 22 months for the placebo group to 26 months for the Provenge group.
Clinical trials of more than 100 other cancer treatment vaccines are in development with most in the early stages. More than a dozen, however, have reached the final round before approval