CANCER DRUGS
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there are currently more than 150 cancer drugs in the market. Some of them are highly specific, such as Tarceba which is used to treat metastatic lung cancer, whereas others treat multiple cancers, such as Taxol for certain ovarian, colon and breast cancers.
The overall oncology drug market is estimated to be $40 billion annually in the U.S. alone. And, the worldwide cancer drug market is now more than $100 billion. Even niche drugs can generate billions of dollars in annual sales. For example, on February 7th, 2007, Roche announced that the sales of its breast cancer drug Herceptin jumped 81% last year to $3.2 billion, and its blood cancer treatment MabThera posted a 15% increase in sales to $3.9 billion.