Some stats from STATnews

  • The compounded annual growth rate in spending on oncology drugs is forecast to rise between 11% and 14%, bringing the total market to $200 billion to $230 billion. If you include supportive care, which is forecast to fall by as much as 6%, overall spending on treating cancer will reach $220 billion to $250 billion, growing at between 9% and 12% through 2023.
  • New oncology drugs in the U.S. included some medicines with costs above $100,000 per year. The median annual cost for new brand launches in 2018 dropped to approximately $148,800 from $162,150 in 2017, and was almost unchanged from $150,000 in 2014.
  • Outside the U.S., the cost of medicines exceeded $66 billion in 2018, driven by new product launches and increased volume use of existing brands. The use of new brands resulted in $19 billion in increased costs in other countries.
  • Although there were only four breakthrough oncology therapies launched last year, which was down from a high of 11 in 2017, 12 of the new active substances were approved based on a single trial and six cited Phase 1 or Phase 2 trials as part of their approvals. This indicates that innovative oncology therapies are moving quickly through R&D and regulatory filings, IQVIA wrote.
  • Nearly 450 immuno-oncology therapies are currently in development across all phases of testing. The Phase 3 and pre-registration pipeline contains nine mechanisms for immuno-oncology while the early-stage pipeline contains 62 mechanisms for treatment.
  • New oncology drugs launched in 2018 took a median of 10.5 years from the time of their first patent filing to regulatory approval and launch, down over four years from 2017 and down one year from the median of 2007. Other types of treatments launched in 2018 took an average time of 15 years.

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