Rome, 21 January (Adnkronos Health) – The global biopharmaceutical industry currently has a total of 5,408 new drugs in clinical development, of which 70% are potential forerunners of a new therapeutic class. The analysis group estimates that the pipeline under investigation includes almost three times the number of medicines for rare diseases as those under study 10 years ago, as well as 61 projects for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, 158 for ovarian cancer, 19 for sickle cell disease, 41 for small cell lung cancer and 26 for septic shock. Personalized medicine continues to dominate, reveals the analysis: biomarkers are used in 1 55 clinical trials started before January 2009. And "with three new personalized medicines approved in 2011 and 2012, personalized medicine is beginning to bear fruit and holds great promise for patients," the report assures. Of the 5,408 new products currently in development, 2,164 are in Phase I, 2,329 are in Phase II, and 833 are in Phase III. Potential first-in-class products are all Phase I 78%, Phase II 69%, Phase III 45% and Phase III 51%. The highest percentages of these medicines are in the fields of neurology (84%), psychiatry (80%), cancer (80%) and diabetes (79%). R&D strategies focus in particular on therapeutic vaccines against cancer, which exploit the immune system to fight the disease: currently 20 are under development; finally, there are 245 projects on cell therapy, 99 on gene therapy and 102 that use monoclonal antibody conjugates to target and kill tumors while sparing healthy cells
