Oncology segment will spur growth prospects for Indian pharma industry which is driven by the increasing burden of cancer related diseases. Even the radiation therapy which is the core of cancer care is largely under-served in the country. There are promising prospects for both radiation oncologists, radio therapy technologists and cancer care centres.

According to the Technopak healthcare outlook oncology report, the cancer drug market is currently pegged at Rs.20,000 crore and will touch around Rs.115,000 crore by 2021. This market valued at Rs.8,000 crore in 2008 has more than doubled in 2011 because of an ageing population, increasing unhealthy lifestyle, growing tobacco consumption and change in dietary patterns.

Cancer drug treatment includes platinum compounds and Monoclonal antibodies (MAbs). Leading pharma companies in the oncology space are Dr Reddy’s Labs, Intas, Natco, Cipla, Sun Pharma, Strides, Biocon, Shilpa Medicare among others. Multinational companies in the space are Pfizer, GSK, Merck, AstraZeneca, Novartis, F Hoffman-La Roche and Fresenius Kabi.

Oncology segment requires huge capital expenditure and has high breakeven volumes. Treatment modalities in cancer has seen a shift from invasive surgical intervention to precise and accurate Gamma Knife. The specialty market share indicates that chemotherapy and radiotherapy represents a larger chunk of treatment modalities, said Murali Rao, associate vice president, Healthcare, Technopak.

“New advancement in technology is spurred up the rise in radiotherapy which accounts for 35 per cent of the market share. It has also registered the highest growth rate of 30 per cent which is double than the healthcare industry growth rate. This is followed by chemotherapy which is 28 per cent, surgeries 20 per cent, pharmaceuticals which is 10 per cent and other treatment modalities account for 7 per cent, he added.

Radiation therapy which is the main treatment in cancer care portrays a dismal scenario. Compared to the global average of 1.80 radiotherapy installations which covers Linear accelerators and Cobalt 60 machines per million population, India has a mere 0.4 Linear accelerators and Cobalt 60 machines per million population. Therefore opportunities in this space are driven by new technology adoption, favourable outcomes, positive cost profile versus surgery, chemotherapy, increasing use of multi-modality treatment and replacement of ageing equipment, pointed out Rao.

Further, oncology care in India is limited to only handful of hospitals which are overburdened with rising number of patients and often constrained by infrastructure & workforce. India requires an additional 600 radiotherapy installations. The shortfall is further accentuated considering that more than 110 Cobalt 60 and 12 Linear accelerators are older than 15 years and need to be decommissioned. While in US, only 123 Cobalt 60 units remain, India still has 2 Cobalt 60 units for every Linear accelerators, when the global average is 4 Linacs for every Co60 unit.

Therefore, we view oncology as a growth driver for pharma industry and radiation therapy units, said Rao.