Wednesday, February 6, 2013

CANCER RESEARCH: DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Cancer has become a major concern worldwide. Billions of dollars have gone down the research river, but the results are only visible in developed countries. B&E’s Amir Moin argues that developing nations are the place where the battle has to be won

Cancer no doubt has become a big issue. Infact, Harvard Medical School says that cancer is second only to heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States. Cancer kills one in four Americans and is the leading cause of death for women aged 40 to 79 and men aged 60 to 79. Society (common people and the scientific clan included) is doing all it can to spread awareness and at the same time fight this menace. At one end, you have cancer research institutes and the scientific community, working in order to make breakthroughs in the field of cancer cure. On the other hand we have NGOs and other non-profit organizations trying their level best to spread awareness about this deadly disease. For instance, Facebook went colourful a few days back. A strange yet unique – bra colour status updates – made its way into the network, but no one really knew how or why the what-colour-is-your-bra campaign took off. In case you are still confused and don’t see it, women were posting single word updates with the colour of their bra, hence the bombardment of ‘black’, ‘red’, and ‘nothing’ updates from your female friends. The colour update craze was started by women in Detroit who are trying to raise awareness around Breast Cancer. While all this was happening on the awareness front, scientists in Britain made a cancer breakthrough that could pave the way for tailor made treatment of breast tumours and revolutionize the way breast cancer is cured.

It was difficult to start this movement because earlier cancer research did not garner the investment interest from the pharmaceutical industry. This was because some methods, like Dichloroacetate and Coley’s Toxins, could not be patented. But with advancement in science and technology, cancer diagnosis, treatment and cure has become a huge industry. According to the ‘Cancer market trends 2010-12’ report by Reportbuyer.com, the global cancer market has seen a continued period of rapid growth. Global sales for cancer-treating drugs increased by 13.3% in 2007, primarily driven by growth in sales of innovative drugs. The global cancer market grew to $66.2 billion in 2007, a year-on-year increase of 13.3%. This market growth in 2007 was primarily driven by growth of 44.0% in innovative sales. There were a total of 21 different cancer therapies generating global sales in excess of $1 billion in 2007. The leading company by cancer sales in 2007 was Amgen, with sales of $11.1 billion.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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