Siddhartha Mukherjee in his book, ‘The Emperor of All Maladies – A Biography of Cancer’ has traced this five thousand years old disease, from its first documented appearance that many years ago, through the ‘epic battles in the twentieth century to control it’, to a radical new understanding of its essence today. Medical research is using this collective insight into cancer to provide treatments that can prolong the lives of cancer patients.
Scientists like Robert Weinberg, Harold Varmus, Bert Vogelstein in the last few decades worked out the genetics of cancer and built the foundation for other dedicated scientists to take up the challenge. The fight to battle cancer continues through the individual perseverance and ceaseless efforts of the biopharmaceutical researchers. Currently researchers are working on close to 3000 medicines, 80 per cent of which have a chance of being first-in-class treatments for cancer.
According to WHO estimates, cancer continues to be the leading killer with 7.6 million deaths reported in 2008 and the death count rising each year. Total cancer cases in India are likely to go up from 9.80 lakh cases in 2010 to 11.50 lakh cases in 2020. As this burden rises, our only hope is that the dedicated band of biopharmaceutical research companies currently working on a cure will be able to quickly bring to market new drugs and treatment.
As a society, we owe it to ourselves and to future generations to strengthen our commitment to advance innovative research and development. Innovation in healthcare can save lives and offer hope to patients whose conditions may previously have been difficult or impossible to treat.