More than 400 new medicines are in development to treat diseases that affect American women, including 62 medicines now in testing to treat breast cancer, according to a survey released by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

“It is heartening to know that there are so many medicines being developed to treat women—our grandmothers, mothers, wives, sisters and daughters,” said Billy Tauzin, President and CEO of PhRMA.

The PhRMA survey shows that along with new medicines for breast cancer, 72 are in development for arthritis and musculoskeletal disorders; 58 for obstetric/gynaecologic conditions, which affect more than 4.5 million women ages 15 to 50 each year; 62 for diabetes, which affects 9 per cent of women over the age of 20; and 47 for autoimmune diseases, which afflict 23.5 million Americans, most of them women.

Breast cancer will kill an estimated 40,410 American women this year, and an estimated 211,240 women will be diagnosed with the disease. But America’s research-based pharmaceutical companies are developing new medicines to fight breast cancer. One medicine, now in clinical trials for metastatic breast cancer, is designed to bind to and inhibit a protein that forms new blood vessels and maintains current blood vessels that feed tumours, release from PhRMA says.

According to the American Cancer Society, better treatments and earlier detection are helping to decrease the breast cancer death rate, which has declined steadily at 2.3% per year since 1990.

“The fact that that there are 62 new medicines in development for breast cancer gives so much hope,” Tauzin said adding, “Anyone with a loved one who is fighting breast cancer or who has beaten it knows the importance of these medicines and this research.”