Global non-hematological cancers market will almost double to $141 billion by 2021

The global treatment market for non-hematological cancers, which includes breast, colorectal, lung and prostate cancers, among others, will almost double from $72.9 billion in 2014 to $140.8 billion in 2021, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.9 percent, according to business intelligence provider GBI Research.

The company noted in its recent report (“Global Non-Hematological Cancers Market to 2021—Strong growth driven by increased uptake of low toxicity targeted treatments and versatile biologics"), announced April 8, that this robust growth will occur in spite of the patent expiries of a number of very commercially successful products, including Avastin, Erbitux and Herceptin. Avastin will see its first expiry in the European Union in 2018, with the two others having already experienced EU expiries in 2014.

“These drugs are all monoclonal Antibodies (mAbs), and are therefore expected to be less susceptible to market share and price erosion following patent expiry, due to practical and regulatory barriers to entry for biosimilars. In this way, these expirations will not pose too strong a barrier to growth,” explained Adam Bradbury, associate analyst for GBI Research.”

Market drivers will include the increasing prevalence of cancer globally, and the introduction of more targeted treatments, which will improve the overall survival of poor-performance-status patients and enable more rounds of chemotherapy to be administered, according to GBI, which adds that there are 2,954 non-hematological oncology products in active development, 171 of which are in Phase 3 development or pre-registration.

“Although none of the products in the late-stage pipeline are expected to reach the same levels of success as the highest revenue-generating drugs currently in the market, due to the competitiveness of the landscape, there are a number of candidates that are expected to achieve strong sales during the forecast period. These include AZD-4736 and neratinib, which are both forecast to generate blockbuster revenues by 2021,” said Bradbury. “A range of companies are actively involved in the development or marketing of these new oncology products, including most of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies, smaller publicly traded companies and privately-held enterprises. In particular, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Novartis are anticipated to maintain their strong market shares throughout the forecast period.”