Market Spotlight: Basal Cell Carcinoma (2020)

This Market Spotlight report covers the basal cell carcinoma market, comprising key marketed and pipeline drugs, epidemiology, recent events and analyst opinion, clinical trials, upcoming events, probability of success, patent information, and licensing and acquisition deals.

Key Takeaways:

• The approved drugs in the basal cell carcinoma space target the immune system, thymidylate synthase, reactive oxygen species/free radicals, and Hedgehog signaling pathway. These therapies are administered via the topical and oral routes.
• The greatest proportion of industry-sponsored drugs in active clinical development for basal cell carcinoma are in Phase II. Therapies in the pipeline for basal cell carcinoma focus on a wide variety of targets. These drugs are administered via the topical, oral, intravenous, and intratumoral routes.
• High-impact upcoming events for drugs in the basal cell carcinoma space comprise topline Phase II trial results for Libtayo and topline Phase III trial results for Ameluz.
• The overall likelihood of approval of a Phase I solid tumors asset is 5.7%, and the average probability a drug advances from Phase III is 41.9%. Drugs, on average, take 9.4 years from Phase I to approval, compared to 9.3 years in the overall oncology space.
• There have been only four licensing and asset acquisition deals involving basal cell carcinoma drugs during 2015–20. The $175m agreement between Sun Pharmaceutical and Novartis made in December 2016 for the acquisition of Novartis’s branded oncology product Odomzo by Sun Pharmaceutical was the largest deal.
• The distribution of clinical trials across Phase I–IV indicates that the majority of trials for basal cell carcinoma have been in the early and mid-phases of development, with 81% of trials in Phase I–II, and only 19% in Phase III–IV.
• The US has a substantial lead in the number of basal cell carcinoma clinical trials globally, while the UK leads the major European markets.
• Clinical trial activity in the basal cell carcinoma space is dominated by completed trials. Roche has the highest number of completed clinical trials for basal cell carcinoma, with 17 trials.
• Roche leads industry sponsors with the highest overall number of clinical trials for basal cell carcinoma, followed by Novartis.