When Bruno Strigini talks about cancer research, it sounds more like science fiction than the current state of the pharmacology industry.
The conversation includes items such as reprogramming the body to fight diseases it would not have before.
“Basically, what you do is extract some cells from the patient that suffers from certain conditions and you reengineer the cells so the lymphocytes can attract the tumour,” he says. “It’s a fascinating new field.”
The field that Strignini is talking about, Immunology, is still futuristic to some degree, it’s no longer that type of science that gets modified by the word “fiction”. Companies such as Novartis, where Strigini is CEO of Oncology (the latin word for the study and treatment of tumours), are using up to 20 per cent of their turnover into developing these types of drugs.
“It’s the fast growing area in health care today, fuelled by demand but there is also a look of innovation coming up.”
These drugs haven’t all come from the labs of Novartis. The company has also acquired drug patents from GlaxoSmithKline. Novartis acquired GSL’s oncology department last year for $16 billion (Dh58.7 billion). Strigini won’t say that the company is actively looking to acquire any one company at the moment, only saying that it is interested in targeted acquisitions.
Not surprisingly, these kinds of treatment are growing in demand, which means big business. The global oncological drug market is valued at $80 billion, and that’s mainly developed markets such as the US, Europe and Japan.
Growth
Revenue from emerging markets is growing fast but from a small base, he says. In developing markets, where infrastructure, diagnostic equipment and the skills required to provide care are needed as much as the drugs themselves, Novartis is seeing high single digit to double digit growth.
This revenue will also from areas that Novartis is currently developing in the UAE. The country is also been a centre for developing better drugs and treatment for Thalassemia, a regional pandemic.
“So if there is one area of oncology where the country and region excels its in the treatment of that disease,” he said. But while Thalassemia has been a focus of medical research in the area for decades, breast cancer is also becoming a key area of research.
“I see that there is an area where we are collaborating with the medical community here and it in the treatment of breast cancer,” Strignini said. “We are conducting some trials here with some of our products, and they are not just post-approval trials but trials that are part of our international registration process.”
Novartis is a Swiss-based company that lead the industry in sales in 2013 with revenue of $57.9 billion. In the second quarter of 2015, it saw sales of $12.7 billion.
