$2 Billion Market Forecast for Lung Cancer Therapy

The seven-country market for nonsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) therapy is expected to grow from nearly US$870 million in 1999 to more than $2 billion by 2009, according to a new study released by Decision Resources, Inc. (Waltham, MA, USA). NSCLC is the leading cause of cancer deaths in seven major pharmaceutical markets: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States. In the United States and Japan, NSCLC causes more deaths each year than colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer combined.

The new study examines emerging therapeutic agents in the development pipeline and provides an analysis of the NSCLC market over the 10 years from 1999-2009. The authors say the recent introduction of more-active combinations of chemotherapy agents has changed the previous perception among specialists that NSCLC is a chemoresistant
cancer, which should generate increased interest from pharmaceutical R&D programs.
Another incentive is the increasing patient population, which together with substantial unmet treatment needs, provides a significant market. The use of chemotherapy to treat NSCLC is expected to increase over the next 10 years.

A host of agents and novel treatment combinations have emerged in recent years. Rational treatment approaches that target the etiology of tumor cells are in phase II and III development. These approaches include angiogenesis-inhibiting agents, matrix metalloproteinase inhibitors, signal transduction inhibitors, antibodies to surface markers and growth factors, gene therapies, vaccines, and bioreductive agents. Intense research is focusing on novel combinations of agents with high activity, such as the taxanes, gemcitabine, and vinorelbine.



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