Therapeutic cancer drugs. 9-10 July 1998, London, UK.
In line with the SMi objective of 'linking business with information', this meeting addressed a number of aspects of oncological drug development that must be grappled with by companies that are attempting to build a business in this area. Some of the recurring themes of many of the presentations were summarized by the Chairman, Dr Roy Drucker (Technomark, UK) in his closing remarks. Many of the innovative new anticancer drugs have their origins in start-up companies, but their clinical development is generally in the hands of multinational pharmaceutical companies. Such alliances, while often productive and mutually advantageous, present management challenges. There were concerns expressed that the innovation from biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies might not be matched at the regulatory end. The increasing individualization of treatment is likely to expand in the future through the use of functional genomics tools, that may increase response rates, but will do so at the cost of complicating the development and regulatory process, and will result in an increasingly fragmented market. Cancer medicine is increasingly politicized: there are issues of "who gets what" and "who pays for it". Patient support groups are increasingly expecting to contribute to these decisions. As treatment gets more expensive and complex, the gulf between treatment practices in rich and poor countries widens; nevertheless, many emerging economies are generating a prosperous middle class who will expect first-world standards of care, and present a market opportunity. Finally, pharmaceutical industry management still tend to treat oncology as a poor relation to its more lavishly funded cardiovascular and CNS programs, an attitude that is not entirely market-driven but reflects confusion about this complex and rapidly-changing area.
Jackson
R
R
Chiroscience Group plc, Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 4WE, UK. BobJackson@Chiroscience.com