The study that led to the FDA approval for Provenge for prostate cancer treatment has been made available in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the study, men with prostate cancer that no longer responds to hormone therapy (basically, chemical castration) lived about four months longer if they took Provenge than if they got placebo treatment. The four months comes at a cost of $93,000. There are about 100,000 American men that have the kind of hormone-resistant, metastatic cancer the drug is approved to treat although Dendreon, the company that makes Provenge can only make enough at this point for 2,000 patients in the first year. More at NPR on the studies findings and more on the FDA’s questions over Provenge.
