Cancer Breakthroughs Are Set to Elude World's Poor, Study Says

Giant drugmakers pouring resources into new cancer medicines are largely ignoring people outside the world’s wealthiest countries, according to a survey.

Companies are working on availability for low- and middle-income countries for 4.7 percent of the experimental cancer therapies now in the final stages of patient trials, the Access to Medicine Index showed. By comparison, drugmakers had plans in the works for about 12 percent of products in development for other types of chronic disorders, and for more than half of potential new medicines for infectious diseases.