Gastric Cancer | Pharmacor | G7 | 2014
Gastric cancer is the fourth-most common malignancy in terms of incidence and is the third-most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Japan has the highest incidence of gastric cancer among the markets under study, making that country a commercially attractive and lucrative market for gastric cancer treatment. While trastuzumab (Roche/Genentech/Chugai’s Herceptin) for the first-line treatment of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive gastric cancer has paved the way for targeted and personalized treatment driven by molecular biomarkers, the 2014 approval of the angiogenesis inhibitor ramucirumab (Eli Lilly’s Cyramza) promises to partially fulfill the need for more-effective second-line treatment. The gastric cancer late-phase pipeline remains buoyant; the eagerly anticipated emergence of multiple therapies belonging to a wide variety of drug classes is expected to diversify treatment options for unresectable and metastatic gastric cancer during our forecast period.
