AstraZeneca to co-promote Janssen prostate cancer drug in Japan

Anglo-Swedish drug major AstraZeneca (LSE: AZN) has entered into an agreement with US health care giant Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE: JNJ) Janssen Pharmaceuticals KK subsidiary to co-promote abiraterone acetate, an innovative oral therapy for the treatment of patients with prostate cancer, in Japan, the UK-based company announced this morning (October 11).

Currently the main treatment option available to patients in Japan is medical castration, however prostate cancer can still progress in many patients because androgens are produced in other tissues. Abiraterone acetate, a CYP17-inhibitor, inhibits the key enzyme which modulates the production of androgens, hormones which stimulate prostate cancer cells to grow, from all sources in the body. This helps lower the level of androgens available to the prostate cancer cells, which is the goal of treatment in prostate cancer.

Abiraterone marketing application filed in Japan in July