The need for effective oncology supportive care will increase in the next decade as cancer patients are living longer and cancer is becoming more like a chronic disease, according to GlobalData.
The company’s latest report, ‘PharmaFocus: Supportive Care in Oncology’, states that while substantial treatments exist in the areas of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia and chemotherapy-induced anaemia bone metastases, other areas of oncology supportive care are lacklustre in comparison.
Why is oncology supportive care important?
Supportive care increases a patient’s quality of life, can reduce costs for healthcare institutions, improves chances of completing treatment, and is necessary now that cancer is being seen more like a chronic disease.
Healthcare analyst at GlobalData Arshad Ahad said: “Despite the trends in oncology towards targeted therapies and new modalities of treatment such as immunotherapies, chemotherapy will remain the backbone of cancer treatment for the next 5-10 years.
“Thus, as the diagnosed incidence of cancer rises over the next decade, so will the diagnosed incident cases of chemotherapy-related conditions such as CINV.”
Unmet needs remain
While the level of need varies greatly between them, unmet needs remain in each indication. The greatest level of unmet need is present in cancer cachexia – an indication where there are no products approved by the FDA, European Medicines Agency, or Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
The main unmet need in this indication is simply for any therapy to treat it. For indications where there are multiple therapy options already available, the unmet needs are much more granular and specific, and thus the overall level of unmet need is lower.
Ahad added: “There are opportunities for developers to rise to prominence within each indication by meeting an unmet need, including launching a therapy that addresses pain caused by bone metastases, an oral therapy for CIN, a safer or faster-acting agent for CIA, an effective and ideally non-topical treatment for oral mucositis, a therapy with more effective control of nausea for CINV, or merely any treatment for cancer cachexia.”
