2023-10-27 05:00:00
October dedicated to breast cancer is an opportunity to draw public attention to prevention, research and treatments.
Good news! The five-year survival rate for women diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States is now 90%. But this figure should not mask another reality: one in eight women (i.e. 12%) will develop an invasive form of breast cancer during their lifetime. In 2020, two million new cases of cancer were diagnosed worldwide.
Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer among women and the second deadliest, following lung cancer. This reality highlights the urgency of continued progress in the treatment of this disease. As a reminder, 685,000 women died from breast cancer in 2020.
Significant breakthroughs on the research front
A more in-depth understanding of the genetic signatures of different types of cancer makes it possible to personalize treatments and develop highly specialized drugs. A prominent example is Herceptin, which has revolutionized the prognosis of “HER2-positive” breast cancer, a particularly aggressive form. However, despite this progress, the drug is only effective in 20% of patients affected by this genetic mutation.
New alternatives to chemotherapy are emerging
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new drug for triple-negative breast cancer, one of the most complex forms of breast cancer to treat. Treatments for hereditary breast cancer are also progressing, as are therapies for cancers that are metastatic or resistant to standard treatments.
Other developments should be noted in recent years:
In the field of immunotherapy, promising research is being carried out, with the aim of stimulating the immune system so that it can fight tumors more effectively. The increasing personalization of cancer therapies is increasingly tailored to each patient.
An innovation that comes at a price!
The costs of certain treatments are increasing rapidly, sometimes limiting their access. While technological advances have opened up tremendous possibilities for fighting disease, they have also contributed to a sharp rise in prices. Note, however, that competition and negotiations between health authorities and manufacturers contribute to making treatments more affordable over time.
The investor, an essential actor
Investors, particularly institutional investors, have a crucial role, particularly in financing unlisted companies. Their investments contribute to financing the innovations of tomorrow. It is only when patents expire ten to twelve years following their marketing authorization that competition from generic and biosimilar drugs becomes very strong and prices start to fall. It therefore makes sense to acquire stakes in successful companies at an early stage, for example ahead of the three phases of clinical trials which must be carried out before marketing authorization.
One thing is clear, in oncology, profitability is a decisive factor that must not be neglected. And with the aging of the world’s population, the potential is immense and health groups are sparing neither their efforts nor their expenses in the development of treatments.
Even in turbulent times, such as during the Covid pandemic, investors have continued to fund research projects. Thus, the rapid development of mRNA vaccines has allowed cancer research to continue almost without interruption. In summary, current research is on the cusp of enormous discoveries and offers, in our view, enormous long-term potential for investors who want to use their capital to improve the health of humanity around the world.
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