Intratumoral Cancer Therapy: A Potential Weapon To Fight the Battle Against Cancer

Cancer is a leading cause of global death, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020.  However, over the past years, the treatment paradigm of Cancer has transformed with several therapies such as chemotherapies, radiation therapies and immunotherapies available to treat cancer. Even then, there exists a large segment of the Cancer patient pool who do not get benefitted from the available therapies owing to severe side effects, resistance to available therapies, non-eligibility for a particular therapy and so on. 

Intratumoral immunotherapy is a potential therapeutic strategy that targets the tumor using it as a vaccine against itself. It is a promising way that includes direct injection into the tumors thereby targeting the local tumor immunity barriers directly. It can also be leveraged to tackle any tumor that lies in close anatomical proximity to a tumor with the goal of direct uptake by tumors. 

There are different categories of intratumoral therapies: cytokines, pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), oncolytic viruses, cancer gene therapy, monoclonal antibodies, and small molecules. The present Intratumoral cancer therapy market comprises only three approved therapies namely Imlygic (Talimogene laherparepvec/T-VEC; Amgen), Hensify (NBTXR3; Nanobiotix) and Delytact (teserpaturev/G47∆; Daiichi Sankyo). Imlygic is the first oncolytic virus that received approval from the US FDA for the local treatment of unresectable cutaneous, subcutaneous, and nodal lesions in patients with melanoma recurrent after initial surgery in 2015. While Hensify got recommendations from the EU in April 2020, for the treatment of locally advanced soft tissue sarcoma (STS), however, it is not yet launched. The most recent, Delytact received conditional and time-limited approval from the Japan Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) for the treatment of patients with malignant glioma in June 2021. 

Without a doubt, Immunotherapy has come a long way with its benefits and advantages over conventional cancer treatment methods widely acceptable and known. However, the direct inoculation of immune-stimulating agents into tumors gives added advantages. It helps in avoiding off-target toxicities, dose-limiting toxicities, adverse effects due to immune stimulation, and requires overall lower dosages due to local administration. While some of the challenges are addressable, some leave a significant burden. 

The present outlook of the Intratumoral cancer therapy market is majorly focused on the treatment of cancers such as Melanoma, Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer, Head and Neck Cancer, Pancreatic Cancer, Renal Cell Carcinoma, Colorectal Cancer, Breast Cancer, Brain Cancer, and Soft Tissue Sarcoma, however, the major focus lies on Melanoma, Head and neck cancer, Brain cancer, Nonmelanoma skin cancer and Colorectal cancer, estimates DelveInsight. One of the reasons behind this could be the high incidence of these cancers. Out of all the studied indications, DelveInsight analyzed that Nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) contributed to the highest incident number with 774,926 cases in 2020 in the 7MM.

Several pharma and biotech companies including Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, OncoSec Medical Incorporated, Merck, Istari Oncology, Replimune/ Regeneron, Philogen, Exicure, Sirnaomics, Nanobiotix, Intensity Therapeutics, NanOlogy, Lokon Pharma, Immunicum, DNAtrix, Treovir, Idera Pharmaceuticals, Immunovative Therapies, and others are developing Intratumoral cancer therapies at different stages of clinical trials. The emerging Intratumoral cancer therapies pipeline is are majorly targeting Melanoma, Brain cancer, Nonmelanoma skin cancer, Head and neck cancer and colorectal cancer include areVidutolimod, Tavo, CAVATAK, PVSRIPO, RP1, Daromun, Cavrotolimod, Cotsiranib, Hensify, INT230-6, NanoPac, Delolimogene mupadenorepvec, Intuvax, Tasadenoturev, G207, Tilsotolimod, AlloStim, and several others. 

DelveInsight believes that with an anticipated approval of these drugs the Intratumoral cancer therapies market domain is expected to gain major traction that is estimated to soar significantly at a CAGR of 43% during the forecast period 2021-30 in the 7MM. Further, in the 7MM, the USA is expected to capture the maximum chunk of the Intratumoral cancer therapy market share. 

Although, the past track record of the launch of Imlygic did not yield much in terms of revenue and there exists hurdles in the name of administration of the therapies, statistical benefit in the OS, and impending competition from the already existing, efficient and accepted immune checkpoint inhibitors, the launch of Intratumoral cancer therapies is still highly anticipated owing to their potential to turn low mutational load tumors (cold tumors) into high mutational load tumors (Hot tumor), thereby, facilitating in an easy targeting of tumor cells by the immune system and improving the overall survival rate of the patients. In a nutshell, the Intratumoral cancer therapeutics market is set to witness exponential growth as the inclination towards the therapies continues to increase and pharma and biotech companies keep on swirling in with their novel therapies.