Stakeholder Opinions: Hepatocellular Carcinoma - Growing Market Seeks New Players

Introduction

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth commonest cancer worldwide with ca. one million new cases diagnosed annually. Datamonitor estimates that the incidence of HCC in the seven major pharma markets will continue to rise over the next decade. There is no gold standard therapy - the market is characterized by high levels of unmet need, large patient potential and high commercial potential.

Scope

• Overview of hepatocellular carcinoma, including the biology of HCC and liver cirrhosis, risk factors, epidemiology, staging and treatment options
• Opinion leader interviews discussing current treatment practices, key unmet needs and the future of HCC therapy
• Analysis of pipeline products for HCC and potential use of molecular targeted agents in the management of HCC
• Novel local ablation treatments used to manage HCC

Highlights

There have been no advances in the treatment of HCC for the last decade. A lack of gold standard therapy for HCC means that physicians are eager for new pharmacological interventions that offer even modest improvements in efficacy and disease outcome.

HCC patients are clinically underserved and there is a lack of consensus in staging and screening methods for these patients. Opinion leaders frequently criticized clinical trial design for HCC patients with true tumor response being obscured by heterogeneous patient populations and poorly defined end points.

Thymitaq (Eximias) and T67 (Amgen) are in the final stages of clinical trials and may be the first agents to be approved for HCC, offering hope for improvements in HCC treatment.

Reasons to Purchase

• Understand the epidemiology and current clinical treatment of HCC
• Identify future market opportunities by examining current unmet needs and how current therapy and clinical trial design fails HCC patients
• Plan new product development programs based on an understanding of physician expectation of molecular targeted therapy for HCC