China's liver cancer drug market forecast to nearly triple to $144 million in 2014

Sales of therapies to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in China will nearly triple from $53 million in 2009 to $144 million in 2014. Fueling this growth will be greater access to medical care, a growing drug-treated patient population and a rising number of higher-income HCC patients requesting the more-efficacious and costly Western brands of targeted agents such as German drug major Bayer's Nexavar (sorafenib), according to a new report from advisory firm Decision Resources.

DR's new Emerging Markets report, titled Liver Cancer in China, finds that, based on positive results obtained in medical practice and ongoing clinical studies, the use of targeted therapies to treat HCC in China will continue to increase as physicians become more confident using these agents. Chinese physicians report that Nexavar, Shandong Simcere Medgenn's Endostar (recombinant human endostatin) and Chengdu Huasheng's Li Ka Ting are the main targeted therapies used for HCC in China. Additionally, by 2014, another targeted agent - brivanib (Bristol-Myers Squibb's BMS-582664) - is expected to be formally approved for HCC in China, but its uptake will be modest and will most likely occur initially in the second-line setting.

Greater use of drugs from MNCs predicted