EPO

CERA (Continuous Erytropoiesis Receptor Activator), also known as third-generation EPO, is a product invented by the Switzerland-based Roche labs. CERA is part of the highly-profitable group of drugs against anemia. This new drug does not add anything, from a therapeutic point of view, to the previous version of EPO, known as Aranesp, or second-generation EPO.

CERA possesses, however, very desirable attributes for dopers: it stays longer in plasma (about 136 hours, or three times longer than first-generation EPO does). One shot a month has the same effect as the annoying microdoses, the best way to take EPO and avoid detection by antidoping tests. Moreover, CERA barely shows up in urine.

Mircera (the commercial name of CERA) was approved for therapeutic use in August 2007 in the European Union, and in January 2008 in the USA. The World Anti-doping Agency (WADA), however, suspects that it's been in use by athletes since 2004. Something similar happened with the first-generation EPO. It started circulating in the international peloton in 1987, but it wasn't approved for therapeutic use until 1989.

There's hope, though. It took the WADA ten years to get a test for the first EPO. Only four years for CERA. The new challenge, paradoxically, is to develop methods to detect the old EPO. Labs all over the world produce copycats of EPO, illegally. These copies are slightly different from the original product, and go undetected by existing tests.

2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of the official introduction of EPO, and Roche's patent will expire. Very soon those shady labs will be able to produce generic EPO, legally, and therefore the substance will be available at a much lower price. Detecting these rogue versions of EPO is the new challenge.