Oncology constitutes biggest therapy area in terms of pipeline

Oncology has the biggest drug pipeline of any therapy area in pharmaceuticals, according to business intelligence provider GBI Research.

The latest GBI report places 6,484 products in active development across all indications in the oncology pipeline in active development. Of those, 2,937, or 45%, are at preclinical stage, and 1,591 (a quarter) at the discovery stage. It is highly diverse and contains a broad array of mechanisms of actions, as contrasted with the market, which largely consists of chemotherapy, hormonal and central nervous system targets.

Dominic Trewartha, managing analyst of GBI Research, said:  “Signal transduction targets, cancer antigens and receptor tyrosine kinases are the three most common categories of pipeline product across all stages of development. In addition, there are a large number of first-in-class products in development for oncology, with 2,084 across all stages, and 46% of pipeline products have a disclosed target. This indicates a very high level of investment in the development of innovative products in this therapy area.”