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## Advancing Cancer Care 

“Living with cancer, you need a positive attitude,” says 64 -year-old Richard Pflaum of Bath, England. “What you need is to be able to take some sort of action.” So Richard is participating in an ongoing clinical study with abiraterone acetate, a promising investigational medicine for the treatment of metastatic advanced prostate cancer. 

Globally, prostate cancer is the second most frequently diagnosed cancer in men and the fifth most common cancer overall. More than 900,000 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed in 2008 , and more than 258,000  men died from the disease, a  16  percent 

increase from 2002 . 

Abiraterone acetate has not received marketing authoriza- tion and is for investigational use only. Based on positive results from a completed Phase III study, marketing applications were filed with regulatory authorities in the U.S. and Europe in December 2010 , with additional filings planned for 2011 . 

With abiraterone acetate, the oncology franchise is devel- oping strategies it hopes will one day help prevent or cure certain types of prostate and other cancers. Researchers are working hand-in-hand with today’s top oncology experts, testing compounds that 

disrupt the surrounding tumor microenvironment that helps cancer thrive and using biomarkers to improve patient outcomes. 

Abiraterone acetate acts by blocking the synthesis of hormones produced by the body, including those produced by prostate cancer tissue to fuel its growth, according to William Hait, M.D., Ph.D., Global Therapeutic Area Head, Oncology. “We believe that abiraterone acetate is an impor- tant medical advance, and we look forward to further devel- oping additional therapies for oncology patients that will help save the lives of people around the world,” he says. 

## Reducing the Risk of Heart Disease 

Rivaroxaban* is a promising experimental medicine that may soon become a new alternative to warfarin for reducing the risk of unwanted blood clots. 

Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, LLC (J&JPRD) recently submitted a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) seeking approval to use rivaroxaban to prevent strokes in patients with the most common heart rhythm disorder—atrial fibrillation. Results from the ROCKET AF trial, comparing rivaroxaban to warfarin, a widely used but challenging-to-manage drug, were presented at the American Heart Association annual meeting. 

The study’s outcome suggests that “rivaroxaban has the potential to protect the 2.3 million Americans with atrial fibrillation from stroke and its devastating complica- tions,” according to Peter M. DiBattiste, M.D., Vice President ofCardiovascularDevelopment, J&JPRD. ROCKET AF is the seventh successful Phase III trial in the ongoing rivarox- aban development program. 

In 2011 , J&JPRD also expects to learn from the FDA whether rivaroxaban will be approved for the prevention of blood clots following total knee or total hip replacement surgeries. 

