Lymphoma Treatment Market Poised for Massive Growth

The market for the treatment of Hodgkin’s lymphoma is set to quadruple by 2024, according to research and consulting firm GlobalData.

In the the 7 major markets of the United States, France, Germany, Italy, UK, Japan, and Spain, the treatment market is predicted to jump from $316 million in 2014 to $1.4 billion by 2024. Seattle Genetics’ Adcetris is currently the only approved molecular-targeted therapy for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which will help increase the treatment market.

“Adcetris currently accounts for 77.6% of the total market, and is predicted to make up 82.4% of sales by the end of the forecast period,” said GlobalData’s analyst Stelios Tzellos, PhD. “The drug is expected to be approved for use in the treatment of newly diagnosed advanced-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma patients in 2018, which will massively increase the size of its target population pool.”

Another contributor to growth will be the launch of new therapies for relapsed or refractory (R/R) Hodgkin’s lymphoma. R/R Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a form of the disease with the highest unmet need. Premium-priced pipeline agents led by anti-programmed cell death (PD)-1 therapies, including Opdivo and Keytruda, should also help drive sales to a limited extent, according to GlobalData.

“Hodgkin’s lymphoma treatment is hailed as one of the success stories of oncology, and has a low overall level of unmet medical need,” Tzellos said. “As it stands, costly new therapies already face considerable barriers in attempting to improve long-term remission rates, a barrier which is exacerbated by the relatively inexpensive cost of current standard-of-care therapies.”

Right now, Adcetris has the biggest challenge in gaining market share for Hodgkin’s lymphoma, because of the high cost of therapy. However, older patients and those with R/R consistently have unmet medical needs, which could encourage uptake.

“Premium-priced pipeline therapies that target the R/R Hodgkin's lymphoma population will find it easier to penetrate the market, as Adcetris has already opened the door for expensive therapeutics in this setting,” Tzellos said.