The top three therapy areas of oncology, infectious diseases and central nervous system disorders accounted for 68% of the overall pharmaceutical industry pipeline in Q1 2016, according to a GBI Research report.
Titled ‘Innovation Tracking Factbook 2016 – An Assessment of the Pharmaceutical Pipeline’, the report details that oncology has the highest number of products in active development at 7,000, followed by infectious diseases and CNS disorders with more than 3,000 products each in the active development phase.
Other therapy areas such as immunology, metabolic disorders and cardiovascular diseases also have a significant number of products in the pipeline, with each therapy area pipeline comprising 1,000 products.
The combined effect of a sizeable number of patients and strong unmet needs is the main reason behind the strong pipeline of oncology, infectious diseases and central nervous system disorders. The pipeline of oncology therapy area includes both me-too and first-in-class products and is a fast growing market.
Oncology pipeline in Q1 was led by breast, lung and colorectal cancer products, with each of these areas representing a pipeline growth of more than 15%.
According to GBI Research’s report, the pharmaceutical industry pipeline grew by 5% in the first quarter across all therapy areas. The only exception to this growth was the central nervous system disorders and immunology therapy areas that registered a slight decline in size. Women’s health was the fastest growing therapy area with a 55% increase in Q1 despite also being the smallest.
GBI Research managing analyst Dominic Trewartha said: “Virtually all therapy area pipelines increased in size in Q1 2016, and within certain therapy areas, particularly in oncology, the majority of major indications have seen their pipelines increase in size since 2015.”
However, the report states that most of the pipeline products are still in their nascent development stages and their safety and efficacy can be known only at a later stage.
Due to the large size of the overall pharmaceutical pipeline, various innovative products are expected to be launched within different disease markets in the near future.
