Zenith - a perspectiveZenith announced the first dosing of zen3694 for metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) on June 15
th 2016 so there is now about 7 months of data. I wonder if we will see results of this phase of the trial soon? If we were to see the types of results that apabetalone achieved on CKD patients it would be a second “epigenetic” demonstration of positive impact.
We also know Zenith is moving into the next phase of the trial in conjunction with enzalutimide (now owned by Pfizer – or 50% owned).
For Perspective There was an excellent post by
tada on the RVX board at Agora but it was about Zenith share valuation with Enzalutimide used as a case reference. It was posted on Jan 29
th, 2017 at 7:02 PM. It is worth a read.
Enzalutimde/Medivation Background Source - Wiki Pedia
Prostate cancer[
edit]
Enzalutamide is clinically active in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.
[9] PSA level decreased more than 50% in 40 of 65 chemo-naive patients and 38 of 75
chemotherapy-treated patients.
[9] Median time to radiographic progression was 56 weeks for chemo-naive patients and 25 weeks for the post-chemotherapy population.
[10] Medivation conducted an international
phase III trial that began in September 2009 known as AFFIRM. The aim of this trial was determine the safety and effectiveness of enzalutamide in patients who have previously failed chemotherapy treatment with
docetaxel.[11] In November 2011, this trial was stopped early after an interim analysis revealed that patients given the drug lived for approximately 5 months longer than those taking placebo.[12] FDA approval was granted in August 2012.[7][13] Medivation is an American biopharmaceutical company focused on rapid development of novel therapies to treat serious diseases for which there are limited treatment options. Medivation, in collaboration with Astellas, is currently developing
enzalutamide for multiple stages of prostate cancer and for breast cancer. On August 31, 2012, Medivation and Astellas announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval to XTANDI® (enzalutamide) capsules for the treatment of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have previously received docetaxel. XTANDI is an oral, once-daily androgen receptor inhibitor.
[1] Medivation is headquartered in
San Francisco, California, and it began operations in December 2004 with the acquisition of Medivation Neurology, Inc.
[2] The current CEO is David Hung.
[3] Pfizer announced it would acquire the company in August 2016, and completed the acquisition the following month.
[4] _ _ _ _ _
Putting this in an RVX/Zenith perspective: 1. RVX started back around 2000 or so.
2. If I recall correctly they moved into epigenetics around 2006 to 2008.
3. So they have about 8 to 10 years of epigenetic experimentation under their belts.
4. Zenith was spun out of RVX in the spring of 2013 – i.e. Zenith is not a start from scratch company but it comes with 16 years of RVX background (8 to 10 years of epigenetics).
5. If I recall Zenith currently has about 2500 epigenetic compounds and 7 or 8 in active development along with zen3694.
6. Tada did an excellent job of tallying the pre-trial findings and they are impressive.
7. Zenith being focused on certain cancers may have opportunities for relatively quick to market approvals.
So Medivation went from start up in 2004 to trial start of enzalutimide for prostate cancer in September of 2009 (AFFIRM trial) to FDA drug approval in Aug 2012 to being bought by Pfizer in Aug 2016 for $14 billion.
Let’s hope zen3694 has a similar story and that they will be able to provide positive results on the data already collected.
I do believe a second demonstration of a direct impact of an epigenetic compound (the first being apabetalone on CKD) on a disease such as mCRPC (zen3694) could have a significant impact on the field of epigenetics from the scientific, pharma and investment communities and fuel significant attention to this field.
I believe that a zen3694 positive findings would also have a multiplier effect on RVX.
Anyway, just some rambling perspectives I had to get out of my head.
GLTA
Toinv