Seed Newsvine
Osteoporosis & breast cancer: The next DTC front?
May/31/2008 11:29 Filed in: Pharma
Business
It is the first large study to affirm wider anti-cancer hopes for Zometa and other bone-building drugs called bisphosphonates. Zometa, made by Novartis AG, is used now for cancers that have already spread to the bone.
The new study involved 1,800 premenopausal women taking hormone treatments for early-stage breast cancer. Zometa cut by one-third the chances that cancer would recur - in their bones or anywhere else.
"This is an important finding. It may well change practice," said Dr. Claudine Isaacs, director of the clinical breast cancer program at Georgetown University's Lombardi Cancer Center.
Make no mistake about it breast cancer is a huge concern among women in this country. Recently the media has been covering stories about women who chose to have a mastectomy because of the high risk of breast cancer within their family. With new osteoporosis treatments on the way from Amgen, among others, you can bet that new clinical studies will be looking for added benefits as a way to help differentiate products.
Can DTC provide value? Yes but this category needs a lot of awareness and a way to help eliminate the confusion with patients. What are the different treatments and what are the risks for each? Right now a patient would have to go to a number of health sites to collect that information and pharma companies don’t make it easy for them with label language that confuse anyone.
We’ll see which pharma company, if any, takes a step forward to truly help patients with the facts and background of osteoporosis and breast cancer. There are a lot of women online blogging and this would be a great way to engage this audience but remember we’re talking about the pharma industry which is still stuck in Web 1.5.
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