In the aisles of the Esmo congress, the European high mass of oncology, which opened its doors in Paris this Friday, September 9, scientific advances and commercial successes are displayed in grand style on the stands of Big Pharma. Keytruda, Enhertu, Libtayo, Ibrance, Rybrevant… It’s hard to escape the star drugs of cancer champions, whose names are inscribed in large colored letters on the facades of the counters of pharmaceutical manufacturers, no more than on the giant screens that display them. cover, and where scroll curves materializing the gains in terms of patient survival of their products.
It is not so much the exhibition hall that attracts most of the crowd of researchers from all over the world as the conference rooms, located one floor below. For five days, the results of hundreds of clinical trials of drugs, diagnostic tests, promises of substantial advances in the treatment of patients, will be unveiled and dissected there by the 25,000 participants of the conference. “After two years in a virtual format, it is a pleasure to be able to exchange face-to-face with the scientific community. Many new ideas and innovations are born from the discussions that take place at these congresses”notes Hesham Abdullah, vice president, global head of oncology development at GSK.
A gigantic market
The British laboratory, which this year notably presents a study on the effectiveness of Zejula, its drug for the treatment of ovarian cancer, is still a modest player in this highly contested market, far from heavyweights in the sector such as MSD , Roche, Bristol Myers Squibb, or more recently, AstraZeneca. It nevertheless illustrates the change that has been taking place for several years among the major manufacturers in the sector who, after having abandoned the field, are pushing the search for new anti-cancer drugs.
In 2014, GSK offloaded its portfolio of oncology drugs to the Swiss Novartis, before relaunching its work in 2019. “Three years later, the efforts are paying off. We now have thirteen products in the clinical development stage, three others which are already in the commercialization phase, and a fourth whose application for approval is in progress in the United States.explains Mr. Abdullah.
If the rush on the market is partly explained by the dynamism of innovation over the last decade, with the rise of immunotherapies and genomics, it has other motivations. With nearly 20 million new cases of cancer diagnosed worldwide in 2020, including 36% in Europe and North America – the most lucrative continents for the pharmaceutical industry – oncology pays big for laboratories. In 2021, sales of cancer drugs weighed more than 185 billion dollars (around 182 billion euros) worldwide, according to health data specialist IQVIA. They are expected to cross the $300 billion mark by 2026.
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