Anticancer drug development area is growing fast due to increased fundamental
understanding of disease and human life science. Cytotoxic anticancer drugs
attack normal cells as well as cancer cells. However recently developed drugs
attacks cancer cells selectively, so the side effects of conventional chemotherapy
(nausea, vomiting, lethargy, hair loss, nerve damage, etc.) significantly reduced.
It is now possible to increase the cure rate. For example, Gleevec is a typical
and innovative targeted anticancer drug for leukemia with high cure rate
and reduced side-effects.

In the 1990s, there was an effort to create a map of the human genome to identify all genes. As a result, various differences between people who belong to the same human race can be explained through specific gene status and/or genetic mutations, thus the traditional Western medical paradigm, "the same disease - the same medicine" has been changed to personalized medicine paradigm, "the same disease - individual differences – personalized medicine".

Herceptin, a breast cancer drug of Genentech, is very effective for breast cancer patients that have HER2/neu gene (about 25% of all breast cancer patients), so "personalized medicine" has been able to be realized by genetic testing before prescribing drugs to identify the presence of HER2/neu gene and reducing unnecessary over- prescription drug therapies.

Recent trend for cancer drug development are targeted therapy and personalized medicine by new diagnostic technologies. The development of new diagnostic methods makes cancer patients get early diagnosis and treatments, and contributes to save medical treatment expenses and improving cure rates. Many pharmaceutical and biotech companies have increased their R&D investments in this area.

Epigenetics is the recent trend for cancer drug development. Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene activity that are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. Among several epigenetic mechanisms, DNA methylation and histone modification are important for cancer drug development. Only four epigenetic cancer drugs have been approved by FDA, so major big pharmas have invested in this emerging epigenetic cancer drug development.

According to "The Cancer Market Outlook to 2012" by Business Insight, global market for cancer drugs grew 17.9% to $48B in 2005 compared to 2004. And it is estimated to grow to $74 billion in 2012 by annual growth of 7.2%. Local cancer drug market in Korea was 500 billion Won in 2008 and grew to about 1,000 billion Won in 2012 with 20% growth rate.