Prognosis
Finding Cancer Patients Is the Pharma Industry’s Unlikely Challenge
- Bayer, Roche to sell cancer drugs pegged to rare gene anomaly
- Doctors will need to test 100 patients to find one candidate
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The world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies, looking to sell a new type of cancer drug that could transform treatment, are grappling with an unusual challenge: finding patients.
The new medicines aim to shrink tumors by targeting a rare genetic anomaly -- appearing in 1,500 to 5,000 patients’ tumors in the U.S. annually -- that can spur cancer’s growth. Bayer AG is out in front with a drug that could go on sale by the end of the year. Roche Holding AG is pursuing the same target.