Quote:
Originally Posted by johnt
Either way, the numbers are scary. Taking up something that Peggy said, what worries me more than not seeing a cure in my lifetime, is seeing a cure I can't afford.
John
|
Yes, the costs are ridiculously high, but it's not really $5 billion for a new drug. The average for a new drug was $350 million (still crazy high). The $5 billion figure comes from all of the failures added in. So, the average R&D expenditure per new drug approval is $5 billion. Unfortunately, only about 5% of experimental drugs end up successfully completing all phases of research to get approved for actual sale and use.