An effective chemotherapy drug is required for older breast cancer patients, as around half of breast cancer cases occur in women aged 65 and older. These are the latest findings of GlobalData (London, United Kingdom), an international business intelligence provider.

Current competition in the breast cancer-therapeutics market is strong, with several key therapies offering good efficacy and safety profiles. However, the standard offering of chemotherapy treatment attacks healthy cells as well as cancerous ones, often causing serious side effects such as hair loss, nausea, and weakening of the immune system. This can therefore significantly compromise a patient’s quality of life, particularly in the case of elderly individuals.

Many approved drugs have not been properly evaluated for this population, and clinicians are cautious about treating elderly patients, many of whom have comorbidities. In addition, despite many pharmacological treatment options being available for breast cancer treatment, including chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, and targeted therapy, patients still fear relapses or resistant tumors. As a result, individualized therapy remains the most significant unmet need in the treatment of breast cancer.

In 2011, the breast cancer therapeutics market in key countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India, and China) was collectively worth USD 10 billion, following growth from 2000 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.8%. Revenue is expected to increase marginally at a CAGR of 1.6% during the coming decade, to reach a value of USD 11.6 billion by 2020.

Generic erosion caused by the patent expiry of major drugs such as Arimidex (anastrozole), Aromasin (exemestane) Femara (letrozole), Taxotere (docetaxel), Avastin (bevacizumab), Faslodex (fulvestrant), Ixempra (ixabepilone), Tykerb (lapatinib) and Herceptin (trastuzumab) during 2010-2020 is expected to offset market growth due to the launch of novel therapies during the same period.

The late phase pipeline contains 29 molecules, with some expected to have a big impact on the future breast cancer market. Promising late phase molecules such as Tomtovok (afatinib), developed by Boehringer Ingelheim (Germany), Afinitor (everolimus), Pfizer/Puma’s neratinib (HKI-272), ramucirumab, a product of Eli Lilly (Indianapolis, IN, USA), and Genentech/Roche /ImmunoGen’s trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) all look promising, and suggest a shift from the use of untargeted, small molecule based chemotherapy regimens to regimens containing high price targeted and biological agents.

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