With the triad of the Stem cell product, Therapeutic Antibodies and Small Molecules, Taiga will initially focus on the markets for cancer therapeutics. The cancer market has grown at double-digit rates for the past 5 years, driven by the growth in new innovative and targeted therapies. By focusing initially on blood cancer therapeutics, Taiga will address a subset of the overall global cancer market.
The unmet medical need for stem cell transplantation in each specific hematology indication is presented in Table 1. We have also assumed that the number of transplants per year in the U.S. will remain stable in the next 10 years and will not grow or decline significantly. In fact, if we're successful with our Universal stem cell product, we expect an increase in the number of transplants in these indications due to the future use of transplant in patients who today aren’t eligible due to lack of a matching donor.
The dynamics of the antibody market are highly attractive for innovative small companies such as Taiga. Significant unmet needs remain in infectious disease and nearly all cancer indications; regulatory pathways involving accelerated approval can be achieved for innovative therapeutics that demonstrate meaningful early clinical results; the sales and marketing organizations required to launch and market new therapeutics are small relative to other therapeutic areas and are therefore feasible for small companies to build; and the pricing environment remains very attractive for products that genuinely improve on current standards of care.
| Table 1: Annual U.S. market potential for Taiga’s stem cell product, by tumor (Taiga estimate) | |
| Annual Transplants | |
| Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) | 2,837 |
| Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) | 4,621 |
| Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) | 2,475 |
| Hodgkin’s disease | 5,030 |
| Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma | 13,124 |
| Multiple myeloma | 2,978 |
| Total | 31,065 |
The use of antibody therapy for the treatment of disease has drawn approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Over the past 10 years or so, the US FDA has approved several monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of certain cancers (source: American Cancer Society).
As with antibody therapeutics the dynamics of the small molecule therapeutics market are highly attractive to small companies such as Taiga. Major unmet medical needs remain in nearly all blood cancer indications. Accelerated and subsidized regulatory pathways to approval can be achieved for novel therapeutics that demonstrate promising early clinical results. Also, as with antibody therapeutics, the sales and marketing organizations required to launch and market new treatments are feasible for small companies with or without large pharmaceutical partnerships and the pricing environment remains very attractive for products that genuinely improve on current standards of care.
Taiga's initial indication for its three small molecule candidates is AML (Acute Myelogenous Leukemia), which represents an even larger potential market than CML (13,410 new cases of AML are expected to be diagnosed in 2007 in the United States vs. 4,570 new cases of CML-source: Leukemia and Lymphoma Society).
