for your reading pleasure
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EDITORIAL
For Your Reading Pleasure This month’s issue reflects the news coming out of two big conferences in the previous month: the annual meetings of theAmerican Diabetes Association (ADA 2006) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO 2006).
At ADA 2006, impressive phase III results were presented for Januvia™ and Galvus®, the first two members of a new class oforal drug for type 2 diabetes – the dipeptidyl peptidase (DPP)-IV inhibitors (p3). Decisions on US FDA approval are expected inOctober and November this year, respectively. Despite theoretical concerns regarding potential toxicity of DPP-IV inhibitors, theactual safety profiles look very good (possibly better than the glitazones), prompting market analysts to forecast sales of>$US1.5 billion by 2010 for both Januvia and Galvus.
Until very recently, advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has been virtually untreatable. Now late-breaking data on progression-free survival from a phase III clinical trial presented at ASCO suggest that Sutent® should replace immunotherapy as the goldstandard for initial therapy of advanced RCC (p8). And late-breaking phase III data indicate that the mTOR inhibitor temsirolimusactually prolongs the life span of patients with advanced RCC who have the worst prognosis. Continuing the ASCO focus, thereare a number of items from the meeting in the R&D Highlights and Diagnostic Development sections (p14-18).
For a change of pace, we profile FivePrime Therapeutics (p11), an emerging private biopharmaceutical company that hit the newsrecently when Boehringer Ingelheim signed a multi-million dollar, 2-year collaborative agreement for discovery of novel therapiesfor rheumatoid arthritis.
Tracey Wright
Editor
Aim and Scope: Pharmaceutical & Diagnostic Innovation is a business intelligence newsletter covering the current state of technology innovation in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Pharmaceutical & Diagnostic Innovation provides perspectives on a wide range of issues relevant to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics industries today.
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Website: http://innovation.adisonline.com
Editor: Tracey Wright
Pharmaceutical & Diagnostic Innovation 2006; Vol. 4, No. 7