In late 2013, the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development studied personalized medicines in the stages beyond Phase II trials. The information used was compiled from commercial databases, public sources and the Center’s own database. Out of 580 identified products, 66 were likely to be marketed as personalized medicines on approval, although a total of 169 potentially could have been. About one-third of the 66 candidate drugs had complementary diagnostics, while the remaining two-thirds were considered companion diagnostics. By treatment area, 54 were for cancer, followed by 3 for Alzheimer’s disease and 2 for hepatitis C. Based on historical data, about half of these candidate drugs can be expected to be approved following Phase III trials, of which 80% will be approved as personalized medicines and be marketed as such over five years. Of the companies developing personalized medicines included in the study’s data set, 20 were biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies with revenues exceeding $1 billion. About 25 had revenues between $10 million and $1 billion, and 6 had revenues less than $1 million. The US was the base of 40% of the companies, while 30% were in Europe.

Source: Nature Reviews Drug Discovery