Worldwide sales of cancer treatment products reached $54 billion in 2010 and could exceed $76 billion by 2015, according to estimates from Kalorama Information, a health care market research firm.
Tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as imatinib (Gleevec) and sorafenib (Nexavar) represent the fastest-growing segment, biotherapeutics, which claimed over 60% ($33 billion at the manufacturers’ level) of the market in 2010 and is expected to grow to almost 70% by 2015, Kalorama reported.
The chemotherapy segment, with sales of $13.3 billion, was nearly 25% of the world market in 2010, and hormone therapy represented almost 15% on sales of approximately $8 billion. The chemotherapy segment could grow to $16.5 billion by 2015, but hormone therapy sales are expected to decline to $6.6 billion.
"Growth in cancer biotherapies spiked in the last 5 years, taking share from hormone and chemotherapy sales," Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information, said in a statement. "And within that category, tyrosine kinase inhibitors have demonstrated effectiveness and thus they’ve been growing fast in terms of sales."
In the last 5 years, sales of tyrosine kinase inhibitors grew by almost 27%, faster than any other cancer treatment, Kalorama said.