Skip to main content

Provenge

Generic name: sipuleucel-T
Treatment for: Prostate Cancer

Dendreon Announces FDA Confirms Data Required for Provenge Licensure

SEATTLE, May 31, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Dendreon Corporation today announced the Company has received confirmation that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will accept either a positive interim or final analysis of survival from its ongoing IMPACT study to supplement the Biologics License Application (BLA) for Provenge (sipuleucel-T). This information was obtained in a recent follow up meeting with the FDA to discuss the additional clinical data required to support the licensure of Provenge requested by the FDA in the Complete Response Letter the Company received on May 8, 2007.

"The FDA indicated that either a positive interim or final analysis of survival, as described in the IMPACT Special Protocol Assessment Agreement, would address their request for the submission of additional clinical data in support of our efficacy claim," said Mitchell H. Gold, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Dendreon. "We anticipate completing enrollment in the IMPACT study this year and anticipate interim survival results in 2008. We are committed to making Provenge available as rapidly as possible to help the many men with late-stage prostate cancer who currently have few appealing treatment options."

Financial Outlook

Management will present an operational update and financial guidance today at the Bank of America 2007 Health Care Conference at The Four Seasons, Las Vegas at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. The presentation will be audio webcast live and available for replay from Dendreon's website, http://www.dendreon.com. The replay of the presentation will be available for 90 days.

The Company anticipates net cash utilized for operating and capital expenditures for 2007 of approximately $95 million. The Company anticipates spending levels to decrease substantially in 2008 to approximately $55 million because it has already incurred many of the third-party costs necessary to prepare for the commercialization of Provenge. These costs include items such as third party clinical trial costs, inventory purchases, capital expenditures related to New Jersey manufacturing and other outside infrastructure costs.

Provenge Biologics License Application

Dendreon's BLA was submitted under a Fast Track designation and was accepted for filing by the FDA in January 2007. The BLA was based primarily on a multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 study (D9901) that showed that the group of men with asymptomatic, metastatic, androgen-independent prostate cancer who received Provenge had a median survival time 4.5 months longer than the median survival seen in the group that had been assigned to receive placebo. For the men who received Provenge, there was a 41 percent overall reduction in the risk of death (p-value = 0.010; HR = 1.7). In addition, 34 percent of patients receiving Provenge were alive 36 months after treatment compared to 11 percent of patients randomized to receive placebo.

Treatment with Provenge was generally well tolerated. The majority of side effects were mild, including infusion-related fever and chills that were usually of low grade and typically lasted for one to two days following infusion.

IMPACT Clinical Study

IMPACT (IMmunotherapy for Prostate AdenoCarcinoma Treatment), also known as D9902B, is an ongoing Phase 3 clinical trial measuring overall survival in men with hormone-refractory prostate cancer receiving Provenge versus those receiving placebo.

In order to be eligible to participate in the IMPACT study, a person must meet certain criteria, such as having cancer that has spread outside the prostate (metastatic) or cancer that has worsened while on hormone therapy among other additional criteria. Interested patients should contact the Dendreon Prostate Cancer Information line at 1-866-4PROSTATE (1-866-477-6782).

About Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in the United States and the third most common cancer worldwide. More than one million men in the United States have prostate cancer, with an estimated 218,890 new cases expected to be diagnosed in 2007, and more than 27,000 men expected to die this year from the disease. Currently there are limited treatment options for men with advanced, metastatic prostate cancer.

About Provenge

Provenge (sipuleucel-T) is an investigational product that may represent the first in a new class of active cellular immunotherapies (ACIs) that are uniquely designed to stimulate a patient's own immune system. Provenge is in late-stage clinical development for the treatment of patients with advanced prostate cancer. In clinical studies, patients typically received three infusions over a one-month period as a complete course of therapy.

About Active Cellular Immunotherapy

Active cellular immunotherapy is an approach that uses live human cells to re-engage the patient's own immune system. The goal of active cellular immunotherapy is to turn the immune system "back on" to elicit a specific long-lasting response against cancer. While ACIs are being studied in various cancers, prostate cancer is the first to be treated with them.

About Dendreon

Dendreon Corporation is a biotechnology company whose mission is to target cancer and transform lives through the discovery, development and commercialization of novel therapeutics that harness the immune system to fight cancer. The Company applies its expertise in antigen identification, engineering and cell processing to produce active cellular immunotherapy product candidates designed to stimulate an immune response. Active cellular immunotherapy holds promise because it may provide patients with a meaningful clinical benefit, such as survival, combined with low toxicity. The Company has its headquarters in Seattle, Washington and is traded on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol DNDN. For more information about the Company and its programs, visit http://www.dendreon.com.

Except for historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties surrounding the efficacy of Provenge to treat men suffering from prostate cancer, risks and uncertainties surrounding the presentation of data to the FDA and approval of product applications by the FDA and risks and uncertainties inherent in the process of discovering, developing and commercializing drugs that are safe and effective for use as human therapeutics. Factors that may cause such differences include risks related to our limited operating history, risks associated with completing our clinical trials, the risk that the safety and/or efficacy results of existing clinical trials or from additional clinical trials for Provenge will not support approval for a biologics license, the risk that the FDA may interpret data differently than we do or require more data or a more rigorous analysis of data than expected, the risk that the FDA will not approve a product for which a biologics license has been applied, the risk that the results of a clinical trial for Provenge or other product may not be indicative of results obtained in a later clinical trial, risks that we may lack the financial resources and access to capital to fund required clinical trials or commercialization of Provenge, our dependence on the efforts of third parties, and our dependence on intellectual property. Further information on the factors and risks that could affect Dendreon's business, financial condition and results of operations are contained in Dendreon's public disclosure filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at http://www.sec.gov.

CONTACT: Monique Greer, Sr. Director, Corporate Communications of DendreonCorporation, +1-206-829-1500

Web site: http://www.dendreon.com/

Ticker Symbol: (NASDAQ-NMS:DNDN)

Terms and conditions of use apply
Copyright © 2007 PR Newswire Association LLC. All rights reserved.
A United Business Media Company

Related articles

Provenge (sipuleucel-T) FDA Approval History

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.