Johann de Bono
Johann de Bono led the trials that brought abiraterone and olaparib to prostate cancer patients.
Johann de Bono led the pivotal abiraterone trial in castration-resistant prostate cancer (COU-AA-301) and PROfound (olaparib in HRR-mutant disease), and runs one of Europe's largest phase 1 units.
Men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer that has progressed after hormonal therapy and chemotherapy, and whose tumours show PSMA on a PET scan, can now receive lutetium-PSMA, which extends life, controls pain and is usually better tolerated than further chemotherapy. It has established a new treatment class in which a scan decides who gets the matching radioactive drug, and it is now being tested earlier in the disease (PSMAfore, PSMAddition).
Men diagnosed with prostate cancer that has already spread, or that is locally advanced and high risk, should start abiraterone (or another androgen-receptor pathway inhibitor) at the same time as testosterone suppression rather than waiting for resistance. This roughly halves the risk of death over several years. The same platform later showed that docetaxel chemotherapy and, in high-volume metastatic disease, triple therapy also help, and that abiraterone benefits men with high-risk disease treated with radiotherapy.