Rising Number of Children Diagnosed with Retinoblastoma Increases Need for Further Drug Research, Despite Effective Current Treatments

Friday 27 July 2012, Amsterdam

The rising number of children under four years is creating more cases of retinoblastoma, producing a gap in the market for further drug developments despite the effectiveness of current treatments, the new Retinoblastoma Therapeutics - Pipeline Assessment and Market Forecasts to 2019 report has found.

While the new research found that young patients suffering from retinoblastoma are well catered for in terms of drugs and effective therapeutics, it also recognized that the value of the global retinoblastoma therapeutics market is expected to increase from US1.7 m to US$2.1 m over the next eight years, providing opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to increase their research investment.

The market is currently dominated by a mixture of off-label and generic drugs such as vincristine, etoposide and carboplatin (VEC regimen). These drugs offer a high cure rate with high safety and efficacy for patients. As the drugs used to treat the disease already have a good level of success, the market has remained largely closed to new entrants.

As a result, there are only two molecules currently in the developmental phase, out of which only one is company-sponsored. These are the Anti-Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (Anti-IGF-I) receptor monoclonal antibody and replication competent oncolytic virus, whose mechanism of action works by binding to Integrin Alpha4 (ITGA4) expressing CHOK1 and H446.

The presence of only two first-in-class drugs suggests that the retinoblastoma drugs pipeline is weak and that pharmaceutical companies may therefore want to expand their product offerings into this field.

Likely opportunities for pharmaceutical companies will be in developing markets such as India, where the population of children under four-years-old continues to grow. Moreover, the increasing awareness of parents through programs and screening campaigns conducted by organizations such as the American Childhood Cancer Organization (ACCO), Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) will result in an increase in patient numbers globally as more children are correctly diagnosed.

Retinoblastoma Therapeutics - Pipeline Assessment and Market Forecasts to 2019

The report is an essential source of information and analysis on global retinoblastoma therapeutics, providing insight into the key trends shaping and driving the market. The report also provides insight into the prevalent competitive landscape and the emerging players expected to significantly alter the market positioning of the current market leaders. Most importantly, it provides valuable analysis on the pipeline products in the global retinoblastoma sector. This report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary research, and in-house analysis conducted by a team of industry experts.