Prof Noah Hahn discusses some of the key advances that have been made in the treatment of bladder cancer. Bladder cancer is a disease seen primarily in the elderly. Consequently patients frequently suffer from comorbidities and are not suitable for traditional intensive therapies. The high level of comorbidities seen in these patients, who are often older and ex-smokers, reduces the chance of seeing dramatic benefits in clinical trials. However, the routine sampling of tissue before and after treatment makes is considerably easier to developing biomarkers to establish if treatment agents hit the target of interest. It is hoped that this will make the development of drugs for bladder cancer much more attractive to pharmaceutical companies. Prof Hahn speaks about the refreshing level of collaboration that has recently been seen between academic institutes and pharmaceutical companies and explains how patient advocacy groups have helped to raise the profile of bladder cancer.