The Future

For Roche, the future is personalised. Fitting the treatment to the patient is an ambitious goal - but the concept of personalised healthcare is at the heart of our research and development strategy in cancer. Through this approach, we aim to use new molecular insights and molecular diagnostic tests to provide more tailored medicines and enhance the management of cancer.

Research into diagnostics will continue, and biomarkers (components of our body cells that can be used as indicators for the disease) will enable doctors to determine much more quickly and specifically which cancer type a patient has. Roche is already working to identify tumour markers that will detect tumour cells long before the first symptoms become apparent.

Our scientists will also continue to target the processes that lead to the disease. Biopharmaceuticals, especially highly specific antibodies, will play an important role in the future. Each day around 7,000 scientists work for Roche on developing new medicines for diseases including cancer.

Ultimately, our goal is to use modern technologies to provide healthcare professionals with more powerful diagnostic tools and even more effective biopharmaceutical treatments based on new insights into how cancer arises at the molecular level.