Executive Summary

In Europe and the US there are close to 20 million people that live with cancer today, a figure that is increasing. 6.2 million people worldwide died of cancer in 1998. The American Cancer Society estimates that approximately 1.2 million new cancer cases were diagnosed in the year 2000 in the US. Overall annual costs associated with cancer currently amount to $107 billion in the United States alone. The worldwide anti-cancer market was valued at more than $15 billion in 1998 and is projected to nearly double by 2003. Approximately 30% of all collaborative deals are signed in the field of cancer.

For colon cancer, as for many other types of cancer, the most common treatments of today are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Surgery is the primary form of treatment and can cure approximately 50% of the patients. Despite important advances in understanding the molecular basis of cancer, few treatments have been devised which target the known defects in tumor cells. Standard chemotherapy or radiation treatments are inherently non-selective and kill normal cells along with malignant ones. The future will be finding drugs that target specific abnormalities in specific tumor cells. Promising new drug classes under development for treatment of colorectal cancer include monoclonal antibodies and angiogenesis inhibitors. Together, these newer drugs are, according to DataMonitor, expected to reach $337 million in annual sales by 2007. The risk for colon cancer rises substantially at the age of 50, but every year there are numerous cases in younger people. Individuals with a personal or family history of colon cancer or polyps, inherited colon cancer syndromes (i.e., FAP and HNPCC), and patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease are at higher risk. However, about 80% of new colon cancer cases are diagnosed in people who would not be identified as being at high risk. 

Only in the US, an estimated 140,000 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed in 2002. This amounts to 1 in 20 who will develop colorectal cancer during his or her life. Nevertheless, there are ways to reduce the risk of getting this disease. Screening can find precancerous growths called polyps and can be removed before developing into cancer. When discovered early by existing screening tests, colorectal cancer is highly treatable.

The Global Structure of Colon Cancer R&D is one of the most comprehensive and up to date information sources currently available in the colon cancer R&D arena. Information about new innovative cancer therapies such as antisense, monoclonal antibodies, gene therapy, antigen- or cellular-based vaccines, liposomal hormones and apoptotic drugs are analyzed in more than 100 extensive tables and graphs. This report will give you easy-to-read tables with projects classified into well-defined structures based on type of therapy given, effect and mecanism. The graphs provide all the relations of these factors as well as the general and specific trends in the current colon cancer pipeline.

Release date: Oct 07, 2003 

Publisher: BioSeeker 2003 

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