Report says growth in global spending increased 11.5% last year.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
The global oncology market has reached $107 billion in 2015, according to Global Oncology Trend Report published by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.
The study further noted that growth in global spending on oncology therapeutics and supportive care drugs increased 11.5 percent on a constant-dollar basis last year.
More than 20 tumor types are being treated with one or more of the 70 new cancer treatments that have been launched in the past five years. But, many of these drugs are not yet available to patients in most countries, and even when registered they may not be reimbursed under public insurance programs, according to the study by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.
“Annual global growth in the oncology drug market is expected to be 7.5 – 10.5 percent through 2020, reaching $150 billion. Wider utilization of new products—especially immunotherapies—will drive much of the growth, offset by reduced use of some existing treatments with inferior clinical outcomes,” IMS Health said.
Patients cost $58,000 on an average to treat cancer if they have a private insurance. The pipeline of oncology drugs in clinical development has expanded by more than 60 percent during the past decade, with almost 90 percent of the focus on targeted agents.
According to the study, the patent approval time has reduced to 9.5 years in 2015, from 10.3 years in 2013.
“A series of initiatives, including the FDA Breakthrough Therapy designation introduced in 2012, may be contributing to the reduction. In the past three years, three molecules were approved within four years of patent registration,” IMS Health said.
The study said that the US accounts for 45 percent of the cancer drug market and cancer drugs cost 11.5 percent of the total drug cost in the US.
Of the 49 oncology New Active Substances analyzed that were initially launched between 2010 and 2014, fewer than half were available to patients by the end of 2015 in all but six countries: the U.S., Germany, UK, Italy, France, and Canada.
IMS Health noted that lack of insurance facility makes it difficult for the patient to avail cancer drugs. Even when available through the regulatory review process, not all cancer drugs are accessible to patients due to lack of reimbursement under public insurance programs. Of the drugs approved in 2014 and 2015 by a set of developed countries analyzed, only the U.S., France, and Scotland have more than half included on reimbursement lists at the end of 2015.
The annual growth rate in cancer drug costs has risen from 3.8 percent in 2011 to 11.5 percent in 2015, at constant exchange rates. Growth in the U.S. market increased from 2.0 percent to 13.9 percent in the same period.
Only 17 percent of U.S. oncologists are in independent practices, unaffiliated with some type of integrated delivery network or corporate parent, down from 28 percent in 2010. State-level variation is wide, with 14 states having fewer than 10 percent of oncologists in independent practices, and six states having more than 30 percent.
“The new science redefining cancer as a large number of narrowly defined diseases and yielding therapeutic options for an expanding number of patients is rapidly transforming the oncology treatment landscape,” said Murray Aitken, IMS Health senior vice president and executive director of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.