By Laura McIntyre 
For the last couple of weeks at CREATION we have been buzzing with excitement as we are starting a new open project in the United States, a healthcare professional insights study in Pancreatic Cancer. We are looking forward to adding value and supporting manufacturers, HCPs and patients in this heavily under-diagnosed deadly disease space, by discovering what healthcare professionals think.
Pancreatic cancer is heavily under-diagnosed disease that tends to progress quickly, with poor overall survival rates for patients. Due to its presentation, pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed when well advanced, and there has been little treatment innovation in recent decades. The key challenges in this therapy area are:
- About a third of pancreatic cancer cases are found at stage 3.
- Survival rates are extremely low (One-year survival rate is 20% and the five-year rate is 7%).
- There are few late stage treatments available.
- There are few targeted treatments approved.
- Older patient population are less likely to be considered for existing high-risk procedure options.
- Diagnostic tests are expensive.
The market is prime for disruption:
Eli Lilly’s gemcitabine is the key player at the moment – the only compound approved for advanced pancreatic cancer. However, key trials released in 2018 have started ripples of disruption. Even though awareness of this disease is increasing and emerging new players like Bristol-Myers Squibb are trialling a range of new treatments, there is still a high level of uncertainty in the environment, raising questions about sequencing and combination treatments.
We are launching our pancreatic cancer US research to identify the needs and challenges of healthcare professionals in this therapy area, to discover what they think about existing treatments and how they anticipate the new medicines, and what could this mean for manufacturers, their customers and patients.
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Read more posts about our US Pancreatic Cancer HCP Insights study.
