Wright wants to keep Carter's legacy with Mets

Kevin Kernan
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PORT ST. LUCIE — Kid stayed in touch with the kid until the end.

“The peacefulness he had towards the end it was amazing, you can’t even explain it,’’ David Wright told The Post about Gary Carter, who died of brain cancer on Feb. 16.

The two would talk at length at least once a month and had spoken in the weeks before Carter passed away.

“It was just incredible that he was at that kind of peace, knowing what he had to endure,” Wright said. “Gary had so much to offer and I’m so glad I got to know him personally.’’

In some ways Wright is the Gary Carter of this Mets team — professional in every way and respected in the clubhouse. If the Mets were to trade Wright, he could become the missing piece for some team just as Carter was for the Mets when he was traded from Montreal on Dec. 10, 1984.

A FRIEND UNTIL THE END: Mets third baseman David Wright kept in touch with Hall of Famer Gary Carter until just weeks before Carter passed away on Feb. 16. “Gary had so much to offer and I’m so glad I got to know him personally,” Wright said.

Don’t expect Wright to be traded, though. The Mets want to keep Wright and at this point he wants to stay.

Wright tried his best to build a relationship with the 1986 Mets from the start.

“To be an 18-year old kid and shake their hands, that was awesome,’’ Wright said of the likes of Carter, Darryl Strawberry and Keith Hernandez. “You had World Champions, Hall of Famers and I wanted to learn everything I could, the way you carry yourself.’’

Carter and Wright became friends.

“He would periodically call to check in to see how I was feeling at the plate,’’ Wright explained. “He always liked to talk about the dynamic of the clubhouse. That goes back to when he played, kind of being one of the leaders on that team, the pulse of the clubhouse.’’

Wright learned about the clubhouse from Carter.

“I try to talk to everybody because it’s easy to fall into cliques,’’ Wright explained. “Sometimes it’s like high school.

“The biggest thing I got from Gary was the energy and the enthusiasm that he had for the game,’’ Wright said. “You could always hear the excitement in his voice, even when he was down to his last couple of months. You could tell he wasn’t feeling well and he started out kind of sluggish on the phone and before you knew he’s asking me questions, like, ‘How is [Josh] Thole feeling behind the plate?’ You could then hear the energy in his voice.’’

Thole, by the way, is feeling great now because of the adjustments he has made in his defensive stance over the winter.

“For Gary to make those calls, especially when he knew he didn’t have much time left, is kind of going to be my lasting memory of him,’’ Wright said. “We’d just be talking baseball for 15-20 minutes.’’

Wright went to the memorial service for Carter Friday night in Palm Beach Gardens.

“You just saw the amount of respect that family and friends had for him, it was almost like a Hall of Fame induction,’’ Wright said. “It was a who’s who of baseball.

“Anybody would sign up to be just half the player Gary was,’’ Wright noted, “and if you were half the person he was you are going to be really successful in life.’’

The Mets should make Wright the official captain of the team. They insist they want to keep him for the long haul. His longtime friend, Ryan Zimmerman, just signed a monster six-year $100 million extension with the Nationals.

“Growing up, I would have told you that you were crazy if any of us made that kind of money combined, but it’s great for him,’’ Wright said of Zimmerman’s deal. “He loves it there.”

Wright said he still loves being a Met and is determined to have a bounce-back season.

“I want to be here because the baseball people think I’m part of the reason we can get things turned around,’’ he said. “I want to win here.’’

Clearly, Gary Carter’s optimism rubbed off on David Wright.

kevin.kernan@nypost.com

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Putin, in Rally, Casts Himself as Unifier

Russia_G_20120223222621.jpg" vspace="0" hspace="0" border="0" alt="[russia0223]" height="369" width="553"/> European Pressphoto Agency

Crowds at a Moscow stadium listened Thursday to Putin, who has lately surged in polls. Some people there said they had been ordered to attend.

MOSCOW—Confident he will return to the presidency by a comfortable margin, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cast himself Thursday as a unifying leader, appealing to the legions of Russians who have taken to the streets against him "not to look abroad, not to run to the other side…but to join us."

Mr. Putin gathered tens of thousands of people for a rally 10 days before the presidential election to counter a series of large protests challenging his 12-year rule. Evoking the country's victories over Napoleon in 1812 and Hitler in 1945, he declared: "The battle for Russia continues and the victory will be ours!"

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin delivers a speech during a rally of his supporters at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on Thursday.

But his televised speech was a conspicuous retreat from harsh invective against the largely young, middle-class urban protesters who demand fair elections. Having branded them in recent weeks as paid agents of the United States, he switched to an inclusive message, calling on all who "cherish, care about and believe in" Russia to unite.

"I dream that we all can be happy," he declared, smiling and hatless under a light snow in Moscow's biggest stadium. "The main thing is that we are together. We are a multiethnic but united and powerful people, the Russian people. We won't push anyone away."

Still, he warned the West: "We won't allow anyone to meddle in our affairs or impose their will upon us."

Mr. Putin's poll numbers have recovered from a dip in the early winter, when protests erupted over the allegedly fraudulent victory of his United Russia party in the Dec. 4 parliamentary election. A poll this week by the VTsIOM agency said 58.6% of voters favor Mr. Putin, up from 45% in mid-December.

The pro-Putin turnout on a mild winter day was at least as large as that for the biggest anti-Kremlin rallies.

On the Ballot in Russia

Read more about the presidential hopefuls.

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Key Dates

Nomination: Candidates from parties that won seats in parliament are automatically registered. Candidates without parliamentary representation must gather 2 million signatures from across all of Russia's 83 regions within a few weeks to get on the ballot.

March 4: The first round of the vote. If no candidate wins more than 50%, a runoff is held.

Runoff: Held within 21 days of the first round between the top two vote-getters from the first round.

May 7: Inauguration for a six-year term

More photos and interactive graphics

But it included many workers who are paid by or dependent on the state, and were sent to Moscow in chartered buses and a special train. Some said they were forced or coaxed. Three young men said their entire crew on a road-building project on Moscow's outskirts was put on a bus to Luzhniki stadium.

Police said 130,000 people converged on the stadium. Thousands fled to the subway as soon as they arrived. "We've already put our names down," a middle-age man said as he hurried off.

About three-fourths of the stadium's 78,360 seats were occupied as Mr. Putin spoke from a makeshift stage, surrounded by an additional 10,000 or more spectators on the field.

The rally was held on Defenders of the Fatherland Day, a holiday in honor of past military campaigns, and mirrored Russia's recent assertiveness on the world stage—in blocking Western efforts to condemn the regime in Syria and vowing to step up military spending to counter a North Atlantic Treaty Organization plan to cast a missile defense shield over Europe.

Some participants voiced genuine support for Mr. Putin, who asserts that only he can protect the country from the kind of political and economic turmoil that scarred it in the 1990s.

"Putin cares about the army, and the army is the pillar of the society," said Andrei Zhuralvlev, a retired paratrooper from Pskov. "The army was abandoned, but now it gets new equipment, more money."

Nadezhda Rumyantseva, a financial analyst from Moscow, said the anti-Kremlin protests "have awakened the people" from political apathy. But she added: "I don't want any revolutions, any changes. I remember all too vividly the empty shelves at stores."

Mr. Putin is expected to win the March 4 vote and return for a third presidential term. But a lack of real competition has fed the protests and questions about his legitimacy. Three of his four rivals are party leaders who years ago reached an accommodation with the Kremlin, which uses bureaucratic hurdles to keep genuine opposition parties off the ballot. Mr. Putin's poll comeback came as he avoided debates with his rivals and distanced himself from his own party, whose name and symbols were nowhere in evidence Thursday.

Nikolai Zlobin, director of the Russia and Eurasia Project at the World Security Institute in Washington, noted that Mr. Putin had also effectively mobilized his supporters in several cities—notably with a large rally in Moscow on Feb. 4.

"He feels like he won the Russian street and doesn't have to be afraid of the opposition," Mr. Zlobin said. "Today's speech sounded like a victory speech. Now he can portray himself as a unifier."

The seven-minute address gave little hint of Mr. Putin's governing program, however, beyond a promise to tackle "numerous problems facing us, including injustice, bribery, rudeness of civil servants, poverty and inequality." He didn't mention rigged elections.

But he did take a page from the anti-Kremlin rallies—a dialogue with the crowd. "I want to ask you: Will we be victorious?" he asked. "Yes!" the crowd roared back.

—Gregory L. White contributed to this article.

Write to Alexander Kolyandr at Alexander.Kolyandr@dowjones.com and Richard Boudreaux at richard.boudreaux@wsj.com

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Online dating making big money

Barry Diller must be head over heels in love with his online dating sites, which include Match.com.

Online dating has prospered, with $2.15 billion spent globally in 2011, according to industry estimates.

Match.com, owned by Diller’s IAC, reported 51 percent subscriber growth year-over-year in its latest filing, and has 2.7 million paying Romeos and Juliets.

Quarterly revenues soared 46 percent quarter over quarter in its latest report, with cash totaling $157.7 million for its fourth quarter. Between Christmas and Feb. 14, Match.com saw a 130 percent increase in subscribers.

Together, Match’s core and developing operations revenue increased by 13 percent, totaling $122.6 million.

Sam Yagan, the co-founder of OKCupid, now part of Match, says that his free site is experiencing 50 percent growth a year — with 7 million monthly unique visitors — relying just on just word-of-mouth.

Like everything on the Web, online dating just keeps getting smarter. Not only is it finding new ways to connect couples, but also innovative ways to cash in on it.

Smart Web site developers are capitalizing on the heart-shaped hole in the online dating space — the next generation of Web dating sites encourages singles to power off their computers and take things offline.

The subscription-based HowAboutWe.com relies on creative first-date proposals to connect people and reveal a snapshot of personality.

“Each date idea serves as a digital first impression,” says co-founder Brian Schechter. Dates like “How about we . . . take in a Poetry Slam night at the Nuyorican Poets Café” reveal personality.

JoinGrouper.com, one of the newer next-gen sites (it began in July 2011), calls itself a “social club.” It introduces strangers who don’t know each other but should, appealing to those who are more skeptical of traditional one-on-one online dating. The site cushions daters with two friends.

Dream date

Barry Diller has a soft spot in his heart for his online dating sites.

* Match.com 51% percent subscriber growth year-over-year

* 2.7M subscribers

* $157.7M Quarterly revenues up 46%

Barry Diller, online dating sites, online dating, subscriber growth, subscriber growth, Brian Schechter

Nypost.com

Xi Seeks to Charm China's Critics

Xi Jinping, China's presumptive next leader, sought to charm some of his country's fiercest critics Wednesday when he met lawmakers in Washington, and delivered his main policy address in Washington before heading to Iowa to attend a reunion with a family he stayed with there in 1985.

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Xi Jinping arrives at a visit Wednesday with U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Read More

China's Xi Starts His Wooing of U.S.

Xi Gets an Earful on Capitol Hill

Washington Address: Short, Polite and to the Point

Iowa Stop to Show Chinese Trade's Plus Side

Pentagon Visit: Long on Ceremony, Short on Substance?

Early Hardship Shaped Xi's World View

Like Father Like Son: Xi Jinping Not First in Family to Visit Iowa

Heartland Return for Chinese Leader

Full coverage: Xi Jinping

Vice President Xi began the second full day of his U.S. tour by meeting Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, where China has come under intense criticism for its trade policies, human-rights record, and more assertive recent diplomacy in Asia.

Mr. Xi has already been pressed on those and other issues during meetings Tuesday with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials, although they also sought to strike a friendly rapport with the man expected to take over as Communist Party chief in the fall.

Mr. Xi stuck close to the official script on Tuesday, but he also tried to strike a friendly tone, pledging to reach out to a broad cross section of American society, and to "deepen friendship" at the same time as defending China's rights record and asking the U.S. to respect China's "core interests" of Taiwan and Tibet.

On Capitol Hill Wednesday, Mr. Xi heard congressional leaders voice strong concerns about economic issues and human rights.

He met first with House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.), who both expressed "ongoing concerns with reports of human-rights violations in China and denial of religious freedom," Mr. Boehner's office said later. Mr. Boehner's staff gave him a letter addressing the plight of Gao Zhisheng, a dissident and human rights attorney imprisoned in China.

WSJ's Jeremy Page has been following Chinese Vice President Xi Jingping during his visit to Washington and makes a call to Mean Street to discuss the issues being aired. Photo: AP.

Mr. Boehner also addressed economic issues, citing "deficiencies" in China's enforcement of intellectual property laws as "an ongoing barrier to stronger economic ties." Mr. Cantor said he welcomed China's peaceful rise but encouraged China to play a "constructive role" in international affairs. He expressed disappointment with the Chinese veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the brutal crackdown in Syria. Mr. Cantor also mentioned concerns with Iran's nuclear program and encouraged China to cooperate with international efforts on Iran.

A Senate aide described the meeting Wednesday between Mr. Xi and 10 senators as "cordial and productive." But he said senators were "tough at times on Vice President Xi on a number of issues, including human rights and China's currency manipulation."

Mr. Xi also delivered a lunchtime speech highlighting the benefits of closer commercial ties and playing down fears about China's rapidly growing power in front of an audience of about 600 business leaders, academics and other luminaries.

In a roughly 20-minute appearance, Mr. Xi stuck closely to a script that was seasoned with polite, diplomatic phrases about U.S.-China friendship, describing the relationship as "an unstoppable river that keeps surging ahead."

But he also said the U.S. must change its economic policies, including easing exports of high-tech civilian goods, to address its trade gap with China.

"It's very important to the U.S.-China trade imbalance that the U.S. adjusts its economic policies and structure, including removing various restrictions," Mr. Xi said through an interpreter.

The highlight of the day was expected later on, when Mr. Xi was due to visit the small city of Muscatine, Iowa, for a teatime reunion with some of the people he met there on a visit in 1985 as a junior Communist Party official leading an animal feed delegation.

Mr. Xi is scheduled to have afternoon tea at the home of Muscatine resident Sarah Lande, who hosted Mr. Xi for dinner one evening on his 1985 visit.

Mr. Xi's return to Muscatine highlights his personal connections to the U.S. and his differences from Chinese President Hu Jintao, the man he is expected to succeed as China's top leader. Mr. Xi will be more familiar with the West than any of his predecessors. His daughter attends Harvard and he has dealt regularly with U.S. officials and business leaders, such as former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

While he was in Washington this week, observers said he appeared more confident and at ease than Mr. Hu. He may also attend an NBA game in Los Angeles on Friday.

Xi Jinping Visits the U.S.

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Larry Downing/Reuters

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, right, and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping shook hands before a meeting at the White House in Washington Tuesday.

The Muscatine visit also highlights economic ties between China and the U.S. Farm Belt, which is benefiting from surging demand for meat and other food products as China's middle class grows. China was the biggest foreign buyer of U.S. agricultural goods in 2011, including commodities such as soybeans, corn and pork that are produced in Iowa.

Such high-profile visitors are rare in Muscatine, although the town boasts that it has hosted at least one other famous figure: Mark Twain in 1854.

Even local people who met Mr. Xi on his last visit didn't learn until recently that he had risen to prominence.

"It was 27 years ago when Mr. Xi was in Muscatine and to be really honest I had not been able to find out a lot of information about him over the years, until very recently, when I saw a couple of articles," said Joni Axel, 69, a local attorney who met Mr. Xi during his 1985 visit.

As part of his U.S. visit, China's vice president -- and expected next leader -- Xi Jinping is stopping in the small river town of Muscatine, Iowa, a place he visited nearly three decades earlier. Video and reporting by WSJ's Owen Fletcher.

"One of the most memorable moments I had [during Mr. Xi's 1985 visit] was the social event we had at a hog farm," Ms. Axel said. "We were all having a picnic…everybody was having such fun, and Mr. Xi has a very captivating smile. That's what I remember."

Local people who interacted with Mr. Xi's Chinese delegation in 1985 met reporters on Tuesday at a public library in Muscatine to discuss his visit. "His visit to Muscatine isn't about politics, it's not about the economy," Muscatine Mayor DeWayne Hopkins said in an interview. "It's about friendships."

Not everyone will be offering such a warm welcome: Several hundred Tibetans from nearby states traveled to Des Moines to hold protests on Wednesday against Mr. Xi outside the state Capitol building, said Gabriel Feinstein, a spokesman for the Midwest Coalition for Tibet, a group of Tibet-focused nongovernmental and community organizations. Hundreds of Tibetan and other activists, such as ethnic Uighurs and Chinese democracy campaigners, held protests in Washington during Mr. Xi's visit there.

Mr. Xi was due to fly to Des Moines Wednesday evening for dinner at the Iowa Capitol with Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and other officials.

He also plans to visit a farm near Des Moines and to attend a symposium on U.S.-China farm ties before departing on Thursday for Los Angeles.

—Nathan Hodge and Ian Talley in Washington contributed to this article.

Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com and Owen Fletcher at owen.fletcher@dowjones.com
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Swiss bank called ‘fugitive’

Wegelin & Co., the 270-year-old Swiss bank facing criminal charges in a US crackdown on firms suspected of aiding tax evasion, failed to appear at a court hearing as prosecutors called the bank a “fugitive.”

Prosecutors said after the hearing yesterday in Manhattan federal court that three Wegelin client managers charged in the case also failed to appear and were considered fugitives.

When no defendants or defense attorneys showed up in court, US District Judge Jed Rakoff asked prosecutors for a proposal on how to proceed. Prosecutors said they will confer with the Justice Department and advise Rakoff on their proposals.

“Unlike an individual, arresting a company is somewhat difficult,” Rakoff said.

Wegelin said in a statement after the hearing that it didn’t appear because “the legal prerequisites to initiating criminal proceedings under US law have not been met.”

According to the statement, the case can’t begin until the defendant has been served with a summons. Because Wegelin hasn’t been properly served, the bank said, it wasn’t required to appear and proceedings may not begin.

“The circumstances create a clear dilemma for Wegelin & Co: If it were to adhere to current US legal practice aimed at Swiss banks, it would have to breach Swiss law,” the bank said. “The bank will, as it has done until now, make every effort to resolve this matter within the boundaries of respectful cooperation with the US and obedience to Swiss law.”

Wegelin is the first overseas bank to be indicted by the US for aiding tax fraud, federal prosecutors in New York said this month. The three Wegelin client managers at the Zurich branch were also indicted.

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My first ever capture of a lighting strike! =D

Lighting strikes over the ARA Presidente Sarmiento in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This vessel once made thirty seven annual training cruises including six circumnavigations of the globe. The ship was retired as a seagoing vessel in 1938, but continued to serve as a stationary training ship until 1961. She is now maintained in her original 1898 appearance as a museum ship near the center of Buenos Aires. This ship was named for Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the seventh President of Argentina.

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Victory gives

INDIANAPOLIS — Winning Super Bowl XLVI would mean the Giants would be able to meet President Obama at the White House. And they’d be pretty excited about that.

“That’s one of my dreams when he got elected president,” cornerback Aaron Ross said. “That was one of the things I said: ‘I hope we get to the Super Bowl so I can meet Obama.’ ”

Win Super Bowl 46, and they can visit President 44.

“Oh, that’d be huge,” safety Deon Grant said. “I met him before, and I’ve been to the White House before, but ... to have that experience with him being there, oh, that’d be amazing.”

A bunch of the Giants have been to the White House before to meet the president — just not Obama. In 2008, after the Giants took home Super Bowl XLII by topping the Patriots, they visited President Bush in Washington.

“It was cool,” defensive end Dave Tollefson said. “I was still worried about getting cut that year.”

Told Bush was too, Tollefson replied, “Yeah, exactly. Me and him, little did we know we had so much in common.”

Justin Tuck remembers the grandeur and decor of the White House.

“It’s a pretty big place,” the Giants’ defensive captain said. “Got some nice paintings on the wall and a lot of guards.”

Wide receiver Victor Cruz said he believes if he met Obama, his life would never be the same.

“That would be awesome, man. I’ve always wanted to meet him,” the New Jersey native said. “I understand he was in Paterson not too long ago, maybe a couple months ago, and I didn’t get a chance to go. But to meet him at any moment, it’d be life-changing for me. And to shake his hand, it’d be just awesome.”

Of course, several Giants said looking ahead to their White House visit is premature.

“That would be an awesome experience. We’ll worry about that after we get the win,” linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka said. “We’re more focused on this game right now, though.”

mark.hale@nypost.com

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New Strides Against Prostate Cancer

Drug companies have scored a string of recent successes against advanced prostate cancer, ending a long drought during which there seemed to be few weapons to combat the disease.

WSJ's Ron Winslow has details of the success by some drug companies in developing treatments against advanced prostate cancer. Photo: Ramsay de Give for The Wall Street Journal

In the latest evidence of progress, researchers reported Tuesday that an experimental drug from San Francisco-based Medivation Inc. extended survival by nearly five months in a 1,199-patient study.

A second drug, a radiation-emitter being developed by Bayer AG and Algeta ASA of Norway, targeting prostate cancer that has spread to the bone, improved survival by nearly three months in a 922-patient study.

Results of both trials were released ahead of their presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Genitourinary Cancers Symposium being held this week in San Francisco.

If the drugs win approval soon from the Food and Drug Administration, it would mean that after decades of frustration, the pharmaceutical industry will have turned out five new treatments for advanced prostate cancer within just three years.

Those already approved within the past two years include Dendreon Inc.'s Provenge, Jevtana from Sanofi SA, and Zytiga from Johnson & Johnson.

The pharmaceutical industry is increasingly looking for ways to speed development of new drugs—including the realization that closer ties to academic researchers can aid in discovery. Medivation's compound, called MDV3100, is notable for how it was developed—largely in the research laboratory of Charles Sawyers, a scientist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center with a track record in drug discovery.

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Medivation expects to file its application with the FDA this year. Assuming all goes well, the drug could be on a track to win approval about five years after it was first tested in people. "By any standard, that would be considered very, very quick," said David Hung, Medivation's chief executive officer.

Also helping progress is a growing understanding of the biology of prostate cancer, a disease fueled largely by the male hormone testosterone.

The new treatments aren't cures and individually their impact on survival is modest—in clinical trials each added a median of roughly three to five months to patients' lives. Their high cost is likely to complicate adoption for many patients. Provenge, for instance, costs $93,000 for a course of three treatments while Zytiga's price is about $5,000 for a monthly supply of pills.

But some researchers believe that the options will lead to new strategies where the drugs are used either sequentially or in combination to significantly extend survival. The new treatments are expected to cause the world-wide market for prostate cancer therapies to surge to $4 billion by 2015, according to Morningstar Inc., up from about $1 billion currently.

"The whole equation for prostate cancer is completely different," said Christopher J. Logothetis, chief of genitourinary medical oncology at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. "It is [now] among the solid tumors that should be considered highly treatable."

All of this stands in contrast to just a decade or so ago when the disease was considered resistent to almost any treatment. Drug companies would say "nothing has worked in 35 years. Why are we going to throw our [new] drug at that?" said Bruce Roth, professor of medicine and an oncologist at Washington University, St. Louis. "Now we're starting to see a payoff in the investment in research about the biology of prostate cancer."

MDV3100 is a case in point. Dr. Sawyers, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, played important roles in the development of Novartis AG's breakthrough leukemia drug Gleevec and a second-generation version called Sprycel from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.

In the mid-1990s, while at University of California at Los Angeles, Dr. Sawyers became interested in why men with prostate cancer relapsed on hormone therapy—the standard treatments, which starve prostate tumors of testosterone, the primary fuel that makes them grow.

Conventional wisdom was that once a patient relapsed, the so-called androgen receptors—structures that protrude from tumor cells like a lock to attract the testosterone "key" that activates them and promotes tumor growth—were no longer driving the disease. Dr. Sawyers was skeptical. In a series of experiments with mice, he and his colleagues found that drug-resistant patients actually had elevated (not lower) levels of androgen receptors. Drugs were now activating them instead of blocking out the testosterone.

"It wasn't destroying dogma, but it wasn't what people expected," Dr. Sawyers said. "It put a spotlight on the androgen receptor as a drug target."

But he said he wasn't able to persuade any drug companies to pursue the lead. So he teamed up with a chemist, Michael Jung, at UCLA to design a drug themselves.

Scouring patent databases, Dr. Jung discovered a compound made by the former French drug maker Roussel Uclaf that locked onto the androgen receptor about 100 times more strongly than the commonly used prostate-cancer drug, Casodex.

Using that drug as a template, and taking on a task normally performed by drug-industry scientists, Dr. Jung fashioned some 200 slightly different molecules, which the researchers tested against tumor samples in their own version of the drug industry's high-volume screening technology. They came up with a promising candidate, tweaked it so it would be absorbed in the blood as a pill and then performed the key experiment—testing it in mice to see if it would shrink tumors.

"It did, very dramatically," Dr. Sawyers said. But academic scientists aren't positioned to take the drug across the "valley of death"—the chasm between a promising compound discovered in the lab and the work required to test it in humans, said Dr. Sawyers, who as an inventor of MDV3100 is entitled to royalties on any sales.

In 2005, Medivation agreed to license the drug. The company confirmed the researchers' findings, tested the molecule and altered its formulation to make it suitable for humans, and filed an application with the FDA to start human studies.

Howard Scher, a veteran of prostate-cancer studies and chief of the genitourinary oncology service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer, agreed to run the research, which began in 2007. Aided by a 13-center research consortium group funded by the Defense Department and the Prostate Cancer Foundation and intended to speed development of medicines for the disease, researchers ultimately and rapidly enrolled 140 patients, with promising results.

In 2009, Medivation, in collaboration with Astellas Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Japan, launched a late-stage trial, the results of which Dr. Scher reported Tuesday.

Dr. Scher reported that the 800 patients treated with the drug had a median survival of 18.4 months compared with 13.6 months for those given a placebo. In addition, 54% of MDV3100 patients—compared to 1.5% of those on placebo—had a greater than 50% reduction in a marker called prostate specific antigen—an indicator of a positive response to the drug. Side effects included fatigue.

During a news conference to announce the findings, Nicholas J. Vogelzang, chairman and medical director of the developmental therapeutics committee of US Oncology, a cancer treatment company, called the results "unprecedented." He added: "This is definitely going to change the way we take care of patients every day in the office."

Dr. Scher said the first patient he treated four and a half years ago is still alive and on the drug. "That's the beauty of a targeted agent," he said.

For Medivation, the successful study contrasts with news two weeks ago that, along with partner Pfizer Inc., it was pulling the plug on development of an Alzheimer's drug called dimebon after it failed to show benefit in a late stage, 1003-patient study.

Write to Ron Winslow at ron.winslow@wsj.com
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