Breathe Easier: Cancer R&D Innovation Puts Strong Focus on the Lung

Innovation in oncology continues to dominate the drug development pipeline, with accelerated approvals, increased funding and awareness, and an overall pipeline of almost 2,000 active products under study accounting for one-third of all pharmaceutical R&D. However, while many oncology indications are experiencing success in life extension with overall five-year survival rates at more than 66%, others such as lung cancer are struggling to achieve the same results, with a mere 16.8% of patients achieving five-year survival. While these rates may be low, innovation in lung cancer is at an all-time high; extending survival of lung cancer patients has become a large industry investment.

However, an interesting finding is that the U.S. has remained cost neutral over the last five years in R&D cost per-patient spend, in addition to remaining visit neutral in the area of lung cancer research (see chart). Ex-U.S. has experienced the opposite—with a correlation between increased patient visits and increased per-patient spend. What is fueling this increase in activity? Is this purely a result of globalization of research over the past five years? Or perhaps the U.S. has become more efficient in execution, thus controlling spend, but with little new outcomes. — IMS Health