The market for prophylactic cancer vaccines is sizable, bigger in fact than the market for any type of cancer therapeutic.  Afterall, doctors administer cancer drugs only after a patient has been diagnosed, while a vaccine can be administered to a far wider population.

Breast Cancer

In the U.S., breast cancer is the most common cancer, with over 300,000 women expected to be diagnosed this year.  At this moment, however, nearly 80 million women are over the age of 40 – the time in life when women face an increased risk of developing breast cancer.  And every year, one to two million additional women will age into this population bubble.  Worldwide, the number is exponentially larger.

Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world, and the most fatal gynecologic cancer.  Most ovarian cancers are diagnosed at late stages (stage 3 or 4) due to the typical absence of symptoms and lack of screening approaches.  Late stage diagnosis results in relatively high risks of recurrence and often poor prognosis.  While the five-year survival rate for stage 1 ovarian cancer is over 80%, the corresponding survival rate for Stage 4 cancer is 20%.  Worldwide, over 200,000 cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed annually.

Lung, Colon, and Prostate Cancers

In the U.S., prostate cancer, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer are the second, third, and fourth most common cancers, respectively.  This year, there are expected to be approximately 300,000 prostate cancer diagnoses, 230,000 lung cancer diagnoses, and 150,000 colorectal cancer diagnoses, and approximately 40,000, 130,000, and 50,000 deaths, respectively—lung cancer is the leading cause of the most cancer deaths in the U.S.