Non-small cell lung cancer pipeline shows shift away from traditional chemotherapies, says GBI Research

There is cause for optimism in the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatment pipeline, according to a study by industry analysts GBI research. The pipeline currently has a diverse selection of 122 first-in-class products and 96 first-in-class targets, and is moving away from traditional chemotherapies.

The report states that of the 389 drugs in development across all stages, 38% have a first-in-class mechanism of action.

Joshua Libberton, an analyst at GBI Research, says: “The NSCLC therapeutics space is dominated by ‘old’ chemotherapies and used to be differentiated by histology or cell type to determine the course of treatment, but recent advances have characterized the underlying mutations much more accurately. The most promising first-in-class therapeutics tend to target components of vital cancer signaling pathways, offering innovative mechanisms to counteract the negative effects of increasing numbers of mutated, amplified or overexpressed proteins in NSCLC tumors.”