Drugmakers bet billions that targeted radiation could become the next cancer breakthrough

Drugmakers are betting that delivering radiation directly to tumors will become the next big cancer breakthrough. 

Bristol Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly and other pharmaceutical companies have spent some $10 billion on deals to acquire or work with radiopharmaceutical makers. They've snapped up smaller upstarts to get their hands on technology that, while in its infancy, could treat numerous cancers. 

"Any large company that has a business presence in oncology or for whom oncology is an important therapeutic category will probably need exposure in this area one way or another," said Guggenheim Securities analyst Michael Schmidt.

Two radiopharmaceuticals from Novartis are already available. Another few dozen are in development, according to Schmidt's count. It's hard to estimate the total market opportunity because there are so many possible cancers the drugs could treat, he said.

Schmidt predicts the category could grow to a low end of $5 billion in revenue if the technology stays limited to treating a few types of cancer like prostate and neuroendocrine tumors, to asmuch as tens of billions if it's shown to beeffective in more cancers.

The drugs work by attaching radioactive material to a targeting molecule that searches for and attaches to a specific marker on cancer cells. The trick is finding markersthat exist on cancer cells but not healthy cells. That can allow the treatment to deliver radiation to cancer cells and spare the rest of the body from the level ofdamage that comes with many cancer drugs. 

Proving the technology could work both scientifically and financially has taken time. The first radiopharmaceuticals were approved in the early 2000s. But interest from large pharmaceutical companies didn't pick up