Advances in technology will propel the cancer biomarker market to grow as more people use them to test, screen and determine risk for cancer. 

Arundhati Parmar

A new report shows that the cancer biomarker testing market will grow to $7.4 billion in 2020, up from $4.8 million last year.

According to Kalorama, a market research company that published the report, these types of tests have shown faster revenue growth than in vitro diagnostics overall. But the technologies are not simply to simply screen for cancer, test for cancer or determine the risk of cancer, the latter having been made famous by Angelina Jolie testing for the BRCA1 biomarker of breast cancer.

These tests are also to aid in prognosis and personalize therapy. For instance, companies like Foundation Medicine and Caris Lifesciences offer tests that can help oncologists determine if there are certain therapies that cancer patients will respond to better than others. 

"Once a cancer is diagnosed, physicians often need additional information about the genetic changes and characteristics of a cancer to aid in the decision about what therapy to select to treat the patient," said Bruce Carlson, Publisher of Kalorama Information, in a news release. "These genetic changes may result in over-expression of certain proteins, or in the absence of certain protein activities. A growing number of options and tests are becoming available for this."

Worldwide, cancer is the number two cause of death, behind only cardiovascular disease. The International Agency for Cancer, World Health Organization, reports that the estimated incidence of cancer worldwide in 2012 was 14,068,000, according to the report.

Globally, the most common types of cancer are breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and prostate cancer and these are also common cancers in the United States and Europe. As such, they are the focus of much therapeutic and diagnostic activities, and the focus of much of the cancer biomarker activity, according to the report.

Arundhati Parmar is senior editor at MD+DI. Reach her at [email protected] and on Twitter @aparmarbb