The oesophageal cancer drug market in India will be worth $36m by 2014, according to a report by Decision Resources.
Growth will be fuelled by improved access to medical care, a growing drug-treated population and a rising number of higher-income, brand-conscious oesophageal cancer patients.
The uptake of high-price targeted therapies will also increase, offsetting competition from less-expensive Indian brands or generics.
The report notes that, in 2009, India’s oesophageal cancer market was worth $16m, and in that year multinational corporations accounted for 44% of total sales. It expects this to fall to 42% by 2014.
Kate Hohenberg, vice-president of emerging markets at Decision Resources , said that the use of targeted therapies, such as Merck KGaA’s Erbitux and Roche’s Herceptin, will increase as more results from clinical studies become available.
“Most importantly, neither of these drugs competes with a generic in India,” said Hohenburg.
The report is based on research of physicians and epidemiology in key pharmaceutical markets of India – Delhi, Mumbai, the Bangalore/Chennai region and the Kolkata/Hyderabad/Jaipur/Lucknow region.
