Roeske
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Roger Roeske had no idea he would be the father of a drug for prostate cancer when he began his research on contraception nearly 30 years ago.
The drug, Plenaxis, received FDA approval for the treatment of prostate cancer last year.
Roeske will go down in IU history as the first faculty researcher to discover the makings for a drug that made it to market. In the world of pharmaceutical research, that is a unique accomplishment. Praecis Pharmaceuticals Inc., the manufacturer of Plenaxis, holds the exclusive license for some of the compounds he has developed.
Roeske’s National Institutes of Health-funded research was directed at finding a more effective contraceptive agent. The compounds developed in his laboratory successfully blocked hormones involved in conception but the side effects were severe.
“Like so many things, this project started in a different direction,” said Roeske. “By shifting the focus of the project, the early research was purposeful and provided the momentum for developing a much needed product.”
Through the initial research by other scientists, hormones were isolated that signaled the pituitary gland, which, among other things, regulates sperm formation. Those hormones led Roeske to develop the compound that serves as the basis of abarelix, the generic name for Plenaxis.
Abarelix is a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist and blocks the body’s ability to produce testosterone, the hormone that enables most prostate cancers to grow. By blocking testosterone production, fewer cancer cells are formed, minimizing the amount of disease and enabling therapeutic agents to be more effective.
IU participated in two of the clinical trials sponsored by Praecis Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Michael Koch, professor and chairman of the Department of Urology at IUSM, said Plenaxis may soon replace many of the other prostate cancer drugs on the market because it offers patients benefits that others do not.
“Most of the drugs we currently use cause an increase in male hormones in the first few weeks after treatment,” said Koch. “This has a very serious downside in patients with prostate cancer. Plenaxis is unique in that this initial increase in testosterone does not occur.”
Roeske was in his mid-40s when he began the research and, today, at 76, is still active teaching at IUSM and working in his lab. He acknowledges that the scientific tests and equipment available to researchers today would have made his mission 30 years ago much easier.
With one drug to his credit, Roeske continues his search for compounds that will impact age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease. He is also studying the interaction of drugs and hormones with cell membranes.
His work is a credit to IU and exemplifies the best of bench-to-bedside research, Koch said.
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