Combined sales of seven emerging therapies for breast cancer, including from Sanofi-Aventis and AstraZeneca, will total nearly $5 billion by 2019

Through 2019, the combined sales of seven new therapies for the treatment of breast cancer will total nearly $5 billion in the USA, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and Japan. Among the emerging therapies for the indication, surveyed experts are particularly enthusiastic about agents in the Poly ADP-Ribose Polymerase (PARP) inhibitor drug class, according to a new report from advisory firm Decision Resources.

The Pharmacor 2010 findings from the topic entitled Breast Cancer reveal that Sanofi-Aventis's PARP inhibitor iniparib has the potential to achieve blockbuster peak-year sales in excess of $1 billion. In addition to iniparib, other key PARP inhibitors in development include AstraZeneca's olaparib and Abbott Laboratories' veliparib.

Sales of agents targeting HER2-positive breast cancer will increase by almost $2 billion through 2019. This growth will be fueled by the increased uptake of Roche/Chugai's Herceptin (trastuzumab), GlaxoSmithKline's Tykerb/Tyverb (lapatinib) and the approval of three new HER2-targeted therapies - Roche/Genentech/Chugai's trastuzumab-DM1, Roche/Chugai's Omnitarg (pertuzumab) and Pfizer's neratinib.