Prostate Cancer Market to Almost Double by 2019 as New Treatments Emerge

Monday 25 November 2013, Amsterdam

Due to the growing prevalence of prostate cancer and the launch of new products for the condition, the prostate cancer treatment market will increase from $4.1 billion in 2012 to $8 billion by 2019, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10.1%, forecasts this new report.

According to the company’s latest report, the overall prevalence of prostate cancer across the eight leading markets (the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and Canada) is expected to increase from 3.3 million in 2012 to 3.9 million by 2019.

Dominic Trewartha, an analyst, says: “In many countries, prostate cancer is the second-most common cancer in males, excluding non-melanoma skin cancers. This contributes to a high financial burden among the elderly, with the lifetime cost of each patient amounting to around $110,520 in the US.”

The majority of the market growth will be driven by the US, where three new products are expected to be launched over the forecast period — custirsen sodium, DCVax and tasquinimod. Furthermore, analysts expect to see an increasing uptake of the highly priced, recently approved drugs Xofigo, Xtandi and Zytiga.

“There are major disparities in the treatment outcomes for early-stage and late-stage cancer diagnoses, and patients diagnosed at the late-stage have a far worse prognosis. This represents a major opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to develop novel, diseasemodifying drugs with improved outcomes for this patient segment,” Trewartha says.

Currently, the pipeline for prostate cancer is relatively large, with 413 products in active development. However, the failure rate for pipeline molecules is very high, with approximately 96.5% of clinical developmental programs failing to reach the market since 2006.

Still, the market remains favorable, as this risk is offset by high potential revenues and a sufficiently high prevalent population to support the presence of several blockbuster drugs.