Exploration of Lead Indication Opportunities for Anti-Cancer Drug in Early Stage Development
Case Study
Scenario:
- Small pharma with anti-angiogenesis lead candidate needs to evaluate and prioritize lead indications for clinical development
Background:
- Early stage Biopharma company inlicensed a reformulation of a potent angiogenesis inhibitor that failed in clinical development due to toxicity issues. Reformulation was designed to overcome toxicity issues.
- Company had advance knowledge of strong clinical activity against solid tumors with previous formulation, but needed a better understanding of the market potential and unmet needs of each solid tumor type in order to select a lead indication and prioritize clinical development efforts for cancer indications.
Objectives:
- Provide objective means of evaluating commercial potential of different solid tumor cancer types
- Rank tumor attractiveness for clinical development factoring in key variables including: incidence, 5 year survival rates, level of current competition, pipeline drugs in development.
Approach:
- Review of literature, secondary data and syndicated market reports
- Develop a scoring system to factor key variables into an overall ranking system to evaluate clinical needs and commercial potential of different tumor types
- Provide commercialization advisory services
- External resources used:
- Multiple syndicated market reports
- Pipeline database
- Literature search
- SEER-Medicare database
- ASCO and NCI data
Key Outcomes:
- Developed “Power Rankings” for solid tumor cancer indications and dashboard overview report of oncology key variables
- Provided market map of currently available anti-angiogenic cancer drugs
- Selected findings were incorporated into venture capital investor presentations to support fund raising initiatives
Impact:
- Provided tool to facilitate management review of cancer market opportunities and helped drive strategic planning efforts
- Company successful in raising venture capital financing
