CLIENT: Pierian Biosciences
DATE: February 17, 2017
PROJECT: PR – Blog post – Response to FiercePharma article
A recent FiercePharma article on the top 15 cancer drugs for 2022 predicts they will total nearly $90 billion in sales. That’s a big jump, considering global spending on all cancer drugs was $107 billion last year. Immunotherapy-based drugs, largely described as checkpoint inhibitors, are a big driver in these price increases. According to FiercePharma, “This brand-new category of cancer drugs works by activating the immune system, enabling it to recognize cancer cells and destroy them. The class of drugs has achieved unprecedented efficacy in a broad range of cancers and provides a much-needed new treatment approach alongside chemotherapy and targeted cancer drugs, which tend to lose efficacy over time.”
The emerging field of immuno-oncology shows great promise, despite the high price of immunotherapy drugs. That’s not the case for some chemotherapy agents. According to a study in JAMA Internal Medicine, several chemotherapy drugs did not to offer the long-term survival rates to justify their high price.
For cancer warriors – clinicians, patients and researchers – it’s time to deploy new weapons in the fight against cancer. We’re entering this fight with technology platforms based on the MiCK and CEER assays, now renamed ChemoINTEL™ and PathwayINTEL respectively, to help clinicians identify the most effective targeted therapy for cancer patients. They provide patient-centric, personalized intelligence on the effectiveness of chemotherapy and targeted therapy treatments, to help support clinical decision-making and drug development. Our strategy is to conduct clinical studies to support regulatory approval of these platforms by the Food and Drug Administration.
Cancer isn’t going away. Chemotherapy drug prices aren’t going down. Providers and researchers need more tools in their toolkit. At Pierian, we’re working hard to bring our treatment directing diagnostics to transform the cancer treatment experience for cancer patients across the globe.
