The gene therapy market has undergone series of transformation from the initial days of research to current clinical development of drugs for treatment of multiple diseases. The initial studies of gene therapy were conducted mostly on monogenetic diseases, but the focus of the researchers rapidly shifted towards the cancer. The increasing popularity of cancer therapeutics as a major interest for gene therapy applications led to it accounting for a dominant share of more than 60% in the overall number of clinical studies. The reasons for cancer to become a preferred area of application for gene therapy are the significant unmet medical needs in cancer therapy, coupled with the large size of its market. Additionally, the ethical acceptance of gene therapy as a therapeutic solution also contributed to the shift of focus from monogenetic diseases to cancer.
A major part of the cancer gene therapy products for are currently in preclinical and Phase II of clinical trials. There has been marginal success in developing completely curative therapeutic drugs. The gene therapy drugs which have been approved till date are Gendicine & Rexin-G. Gendicine, which is developed by Shenzhen SiBiono Gene Technologies Co., is currently marketed only in China and Rexin-G in Philippines.
Gene therapy offers a large window of opportunities for the treatment of multiple cancers. The therapy has been found to be able to deliver special tumor suppressor genes to an individual, which could prevent the growth of malignant tumors and also reduce the metastatic disease. . The major concentration is being given to the rare tumor types such as pancreatic cancer, and highly prevalent tumor types such as breast cancer and prostate cancer. With the prevalence of cancer rising significantly, the future drug pipelines of the companies are mostly focusing on gene therapy for cancer.
Cancer Gene Therapy Report Highlights & Findings:
