In a previous post in 2006, I wrote that the cost to bring a drug to market is $802 million. Although that is a huge number, it may be an underestimate.
Pharmafile reports that the cost to bring a brand drug to market is now over $1 billion.
the cost of bringing a brand from discovery to market has increased 18% over the four years from $1.1 billion in 2010, to $1.3 billion in 2013.
This type of figure – around $1 billion – is often quoted by the pharma industry and is supported by the ABPI (which in fact says it costs £1.15 billion – pounds not dollars) to do the necessary R&D, with The Office of Health Economics putting the cost per new medicine higher still, at £1.2 billion.
However, earlier this year Sir Andrew Witty, chief executive of GSK, memorably disputed this by saying that the $1 billion price tag is ‘one of the great myths of the industry’.
The article also states that return on investment for a number of large PhARMA firms is has declined from 10% in 2010 to 5% in 2013.
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