Cancer is a highly complicated disease

Cancer is much more technically complex than many diseases and the understanding of how the biochemistry and the drug interact can make or break a product. The subject matter of the disease may make the oncologist ask millions of questions related to the disease. The primary difference between a cardiologist or a dermatologist may be that the they may ask only common/ routine questions to the pharma company responsible for marketing/ conducting the clinical trials of the drug, whereas the oncologist will ask a lot of why and where questions... why should I use this drug, where is the evidence to show X or Y etc. If the pharma company's drug isn't better than what an oncologist has already, especially in efficacy, no amount of hype is going to give you a hook or an advantage. Risk-benefit trade-offs in a serious disease that may lead to deaths forces people to think about the treatments in another light.

The most common questions an oncologist is going to hear from people who visit are:

Will I be cured?
Will it make me live a little longer?
Will the treatment make me feel better?

Success in the oncology arena boils down to data and how well a pharma company can stack up against the competition. Being first to market gives a pharma company , a huge advantage too, since a hurdle is set and the ones afterwards are forced to demonstrate why they are better.

http://www.blogs.veedaoncology.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=22