Monday, January 19, 2009

Decision Resources: U.S. tops for melanoma drug market

By Mass High Tech staff

Decision Resources Inc., a Waltham-based research and advisory firm focusing on pharmaceutical and health-care industry insight and analysis, has filed a report called Malignant Melanoma (Stage IV): Emerging Therapies Must Increase Overall Survival over Dacarbazine to Attain High Patient Share.

The firm has determined that, should a drug treatment to extend overall survival for Stage 4 malignant melanoma be developed to surpass the efficacy of current chemotherapy drug Dacarbazine, the U.S. would hold a greater market share than Europe. The conclusion was developed from surveys conducted of both U.S. and European oncologists, with the U.S. pulling in 60 percent patient share and Europe taking 40 percent share of patients.

The company, as a result, has indicated that ipilimumab, from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Medarex Inc., would receive the Decision Resources clinical gold standard from 2012 to 2017 for its overall survivability level. When used in combination with Dacarbazine, the drug treatment can nearly double the survival rate.

Decision Resources also owns research firms HealthLeaders-InterStudy, focused on the managed care industry, and Millennium Research Group, which provides market intelligence on the medical device industry.