Six months post launch, US prescribing trends for Xtandi

At six months following launch of Xtandi (Astellas Pharma/Medivation's enzalutamide), surveyed urologists and medical oncologists in the USA prescribed Xtandi to a respective 19% and 24% of their metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients who have failed to respond or had very rapid progression from docetaxel (Sanofi's Taxotere, generics) treatment.

In six months' time, surveyed respondents expect to prescribe Xtandi to 35-39 percent of these mCRPC patients, making Xtandi the patient share leader in this patient population, according to BioTrends Research Group, a unit of Decision Resources.

The second wave of the LaunchTrends: Xtandi report series, fielded six months following the launch of Xtandi in the USA, finds that 30% percent of surveyed urologists have prescribed Xtandi in clinical practice compared with 43% of surveyed medical oncologists. In contrast, data published just one month post launch of Xtandi revealed that less than 10% of surveyed urologists had prescribed Xtandi in clinical practice (ie, outside of clinical trials), compared with 39% of their medical oncologist counterparts. Lack of familiarity with Xtandi and because many eligible patients are already receiving Zytiga (Johnson & Johnson/Janssen Biotech/Janssen Cilag's abiraterone) are key reasons cited by surveyed respondents for not having prescribed Xtandi yet. However, the majority of current non-prescribing urologists (61%) and medical oncologists (88%) surveyed said that they expect to prescribe Xtandi within the next six months.