Market opportunity
The figures below are bottom-up estimates from public sources. We separate the total addressable market, a theoretical ceiling, from realistic, penetration-adjusted peak sales. These are estimates, not forecasts.
The high-risk population
An estimated 10-20 million people worldwide are at high risk of keratinocyte carcinoma - people with a prior skin cancer, organ transplant recipients and others on immunosuppression, patients with conditions such as Gorlin syndrome, and those with heavy sun damage. A narrower, very-high-risk definition - transplant, immunosuppressed and heavily sun-damaged patients - is roughly 2-4 million, and carries the clearest reimbursement case because these patients are already under active dermatological surveillance.
The pricing assumption
We assume £800-£2,400 per patient per year for a branded, patented preventive. A differentiated medicine with strong efficacy in the highest-risk patients can command specialty pricing; cheap generic comparators for chemoprevention put downward pressure on price in lower-risk segments. Pricing is the single largest sensitivity in the model.
Total addressable market (a ceiling, not the opportunity). 10-20 million patients at £800-£2,400 per year is £8-48 billion per year. That is the market at full penetration and full price - a theoretical ceiling only, not peak sales.
Penetration-adjusted peak sales
Applying realistic peak market penetration to the addressable population gives the figures we actually plan against:
10M patients × £800/yr × 15% penetration
15M patients × £1,200/yr × 25% penetration
20M patients × £2,000/yr × 35% penetration
Even the conservative scenario exceeds £1 billion a year in peak sales, and the opportunity is concentrated in the highest-risk, actively surveilled segments - transplant, Gorlin and recurrent multi-tumour patients - which also carry the strongest reimbursement case and are the rational first indications.
Key caveats
Sources