Pancreatic cancer a $1.1 billion US drug market opportunity

The US pancreatic cancer drug market will grow to $1.1 billion by 2013, according to a newly-released EPiQ Market Intelligence Program, the first of a series to be based on actual cancer patient treatment records. At least 85 anticancer agents, including therapeutic vaccines and angiogenesis inhibitors, are in development worldwide and will fuel 13% growth of this US market over the decade, the study notes.

Over 30,000 cases of pancreatic cancer are diagnosed in the USA each year and, with a five-year survival rate of less than 4%, it is the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths. The lack of effective treatments, better management of side effects and increased attention to clinical trial design are among the key specific needs that remain to be addressed.

EPiQ notes that a rich development pipeline includes: - vaccine G17DT (Aphton Corp/Aventis Pasteur); - vascular endothelial growth factor antagonist bevacizumab (Genentech/Roche/Chugai); - epidermal growth factor (EGFR) inhibitors cetuximab (ImClone Systems/Bristol-Myers Squibb/Merck KGaA) and erlotinib (Genentech/Roche); - DNA topoisomerase I inhibitors rubitecan (SuperGen), irinotecan (Yakult Honsha/Pfizer) and exatecan (Daiichi Pharmaceutical); - metalloproteinase inhibitor marmistat (Vernalis/Schering-Plough); - farnesyl transferase inhibitor tipifarnib (Janssen); - tumor necrosis factor antagonist virulizin (Lorus Therapeutics/Mayne Group); and - growth hormone antagonist lanreotide (Beaufour Ipsen Pharma/Biomeasure/Ipsen)