Most EU-approved cancer drugs lack high clinical benefit — SkimNews
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- European regulators approved 97 indications for 63 cancer drugs from January 2022 through July 2026, but only 31% demonstrated high clinical benefit according to ESMO criteria.
- European Society for Medical Oncology measurement tools gave the top grade to just nine of the 63 approved cancer medications, indicating a scarcity of transformative therapies.
- Five drugmakers accounted for over half of all high-benefit cancer drug indications approved in Europe during the period, signaling a concentrated source of innovation.
- Four of the five top-performing companies behind high-benefit approvals are based in China or Japan, marking a shift in the global oncology drug development landscape.
- Only 19 of the 63 approved cancer drugs had at least one indication rated as high clinical benefit, underscoring a gap between regulatory approval and meaningful patient outcomes.
Why it matters: Patients and health systems may face rising costs for cancer treatments that deliver limited survival or quality-of-life gains, while the dominance of Asian firms in high-benefit approvals challenges the traditional leadership of Western pharmaceutical companies in oncology innovation.
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