SITC 2016 Update on the Competitive Urothelial Cancer Market
National Harbor, MD
Bladder cancer is the most common of the urothelial cancers and is the 9th most common cancer globally, with over 400,000 new cases each year and around 165,000 deaths. In the US, approximately 76,000 Americans will be diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2016 and ~11% of new diagnoses are made when bladder cancer is in advanced stages.
Unlike tumour types such as ovarian and pancreatic cancers, the majority of bladder and urothelial cancers are diagnosed at an earlier stage. The rates of recurrence and disease progression, however, are high and approx. 78% will recur within 5 years while the 5-year survival for stage IV bladder cancer is pretty dismal at 15%.
Earlier this year, Genentech/Roche’s anti-PDL1 antibody atezolizumab (Tecentriq) was approved by the FDA in the second line setting and was the first such new approval in this disease for 30 years.
Since then, there has been heightened interest in urothelial and bladder cancers in multiple settings, with several companies rushing to play catch up, including Merck and BMS.
We’ve been following the steady progress of checkpoint blockade this year at AACR, ASCO, ESMO and now SITC – amazingly, what was once a graveyard for Pharmaland has now become a hypercompetitive niche in a very short time.
Here, we take a look at the latest data in advanced urothelial cancers and explore the landscape in the context of rapidly increasing competition.
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