According to Sanofi's Chris Viehbacher studies on R&D productivity in pharma-land show that "on average" if you spend $1 on R&D you will receive a whopping $0.70 in return. See Fierce Biotech.
What if your investment adviser told you, "Hey, if you invest $XX with me today, in 10-15 years I'll give you 70% back guaranteed!" Wow, such a deal.
No wonder, R&D departments across the industry are under attack, private VC is down, and Big Pharma is looking for partner companies, institutions, etc to invest in to try to get some new products and earn a decent return. Seems strange with the historic profitability of the industry that we would have ended up here.
Posted by Bruce Lehr Feb 16th 2012.
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