Only about 15% of therapeutic drug candidates are discovered. Research group believes that the reason for this is that there are few therapeutic drugs available for some types of cancer.
In Japan, ``cancer gene panel testing,'' searches a wide range of genes to find the most suitable drug for cancer patients. Only 15.3% of patients found a candidate treatment for thyroid cancer and 60.1% for invasive breast cancer, according to research group at the National Cancer Center Research Institute. The lack of progress in development is contributing to the large difference, research group says.