Russian market for lung cancer drugs to hit $163m by 2015

Sales of drugs for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are expected to see three per cent annual growth in Russia over the next four years and hit $163m by 2015.

Market growth will also be led by gradually rising use of higher-priced chemotherapies and the introduction of several premium-priced agents.

"As the incident non-small-cell lung cancer population grows in Russia, sales of most drug classes are expected to grow through 2015," said Decision Resources analyst Natalia Reoutova.

"The most dramatic growth will likely be seen in the kinase inhibitors drug class where three emerging agents - Boehringer Ingelheim's afitinib, Pfizer's dacomitinib and ArQule/Daiichi Sankyo/Kyowa Hakko Kirin's tivantinib - should make their debut in or before 2015."

Boehringer's afitinab is currently in phase III trials for NSCLC and breast cancer, and phase II trials for prostate and head and neck cancers, as well as glioma. The next generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor, targets the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2).

Pfizer's dacomitinib is also in phase III trials for NSCLC and the company signed up to use Qiagen's KRAS diagnostic test in August in a bid to help differentiate its drug from Roche's Tarceva (erlotinib), currently the top-selling NSCLC treatment.

Meanwhile, Daiichi Sankyo began enrolling patients in Europe into a large, multinational phase III trial of tivantinib, its investigational small molecule inhibitor of the c-MET receptor tyrosine kinase, in April this year.

Russia has a higher incidence of the disease than its fellow BRIC countries of Brazil, India and China, and analysts at Decision Resources say levels are comparable to those seen in the UK and US.

According to Decision Resources' 'Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer in Russia' report, increasing smoking prevalence in men, in conjunction with an aging population will drive an increase in NSCLC incidence in the country.

Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers Europe and the leading cause of cancer-related death among men and women, and NSCLC is the most common form of the disease, accounting for approximately 85 per cent of all lung cancer cases.