NEW YORK (GBI Research): While some areas of the leukemia drugs pipeline are showing promise, the therapeutics market must also focus on reducing the number of people being misdiagnosed as to their particular type and subtype of the disease in order to move forward, a new report published by business intelligence provider GBI Research says.
The revenue of the leukemia treatment market has increased at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 21% during the past eight years, due to the launch of new therapies including Sprycel (dasatinib), Tasigna (nilotinib), Clolar (cloferabine) and Arranon (nelarabine), which will continue to enjoy patent protection throughout the next six years covered by the report’s forecast period.
The leukemia therapeutics market last year was dominated by branded drugs such as Gleevec (imatinib), Tasigna, Clolar and Arranon with a market share of 85%, while generics such as vincristine, doxorubicin, methotrexate and cytarabine accounted for the remaining 15% share.
During late 2011, the R&D pipeline for leukemia therapeutics had roughly 1,415 clinical trials in various stages of development, including several late stage first-in-class molecules soon expected to be launched. As Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML) therapeutics accounted for 43% of the leukemia drug development pipeline, the report predicts a future improvement on the lack of treatment options and correspondingly high mortality rate associated with this disease at present.
However, the report also notes that the risk of misdiagnosis may be an obstacle for the future development of the leukemia market. As leukemia exists in four different types and 50 subtypes, each having a unique genetic signature and requiring different prognosis and treatment, diagnostic tests for leukemia are expensive and inaccurate, with around 50% of all patients misdiagnosed as per their exact subtype of the disease. While new techniques allow for the analysis of all 400 genes that are known to be causes of leukemia in order to find which corresponds to different subtypes, achieving accurate diagnosis remains a challenge and may prove to be a significant obstacle for the leukemia therapeutics market to overcome.
In 2011, the leukemia therapeutics market for four major leukemia indications was estimated at $4 billion, indicating a CAGR of 21.0% since 2004. GBI Research forecasts the market to grow at a CAGR of 9.5% between 2011 and 2018 to reach to $7.6 billion by 2018