The need for effective supportive care in oncology
will increase in the next decade as patients continue to live
longer and cancer progresses to become more like a chronic
disease. This includes the need for chemotherapy-related
conditions, as chemotherapy will remain the backbone of cancer
therapy for the foreseeable future, observes GlobalData, a
leading data and analytics company.
The company’s latest report: ‘PharmaFocus:
Supportive Care in Oncology’ states that while there
are blockbuster treatments in the areas of chemotherapy-induced
neutropenia (CIN), chemotherapy-induced anemia (CIA), and bone
metastases, other areas of supportive care in oncology are not as
strong. The chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV)
features a wide array of treatment options but no blockbusters,
while oral mucositis has a much smaller treatment portfolio and
cancer cachexia currently has no approved
treatments.
Supportive care increases patient quality of life,
improves their chances of completing treatment, can reduce costs
for healthcare institutions, and is fundamentally necessary given
that patients are now living longer and cancer is becoming more
like a chronic disease.
Arshad Ahad, Healthcare Analyst at GlobalData,
comments: “Despite the trends in oncology towards targeted
therapies and new modalities of treatment such as
immunotherapies, chemotherapy will remain the backbone of cancer
treatment for the next five to 10 years. Thus, as the diagnosed
incidence of cancer rises over the next decade, so will the
diagnosed incident cases of chemotherapy-related conditions such
as CINV.”
While the level of need varies greatly between them,
unmet needs still remain in each indication. The greatest level
of unmet need is present in cancer cachexia – an indication for
which there are no products approved by the FDA, European
Medicines Agency, or Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and
Welfare. Thus, the main, over-arching unmet need in this
indication is simply for any therapy to treat it. For indications
where there are multiple therapy options already available, the
unmet needs are much more granular and specific and thus the
overall level of unmet need is lower.
Ahad adds: “There are opportunities for developers to
rise to prominence within each indication by meeting an unmet
need, including launching a therapy that addresses pain caused by
bone metastases, an oral therapy for CIN, a safer or
faster-acting agent for CIA, an effective and ideally non-topical
treatment for oral mucositis, a therapy with more effective
control of nausea for CINV, or merely any treatment for cancer
cachexia.”
Information based on GlobalData’s
report: PharmaFocus:
Supportive Care in Oncology
ENDS
Editor’s notes
- Comments provided by Arshad Ahad, Healthcare
Analyst at GlobalData
- Information based on GlobalData’s
report: PharmaFocus: Supportive
Care in Oncology
Report Overview
This report highlights Key Opinion Leaders (KOL)
views on the past, present, and future trends in supportive care
in oncology in their countries. It provides cancer and cancer
supportive care epidemiological insight and provides an overview
of the market landscape and available therapies. It also provides
an overview of all late-stage (Phase II and III) candidates and
evaluates the prominent pipeline agents that are closest to
market entry. It identifies the unmet needs and opportunities in
each indication. Finally, it highlights R&D strategies used
by developers in this field, alongside clinical trial design
considerations and challenges.
This report was built using data and information
sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary
research, and in-house analysis conducted by GlobalData’s team of
industry experts.
