I love this back and forth debate about how much drugs cost to bring to market -- focusing ostensibly on the R&D costs. Problem is -- apparently -- no one can agree on where R&D costs start and finish. Nor can they agree on which drugs are coming to market. Is it NMEs? Is it variations on existing drugs? Both? Neither?
The Costly Myths about Pharmaceutical R&D - Health News Watchdog .
We also get to argue about whether discovery is included or not. Whether the cost of capital should be considered or not. Whether the government or public subsidizes the process, to what degree, and whether that should be deducted from the costs in the analysis. We can't even agree whether we're including biotechs or not in our analyses.
That's how we end up with an estimate of the cost of developing a new drug falling somewhere between $56 M and $11.9 B. We might be able to just barely slide a piece of paper through that crack. More like dozens and dozens of reams.
Posted by Bruce Lehr Feb 17th 2012.
Like in politics, and other media hot topics, the extremes hold the headlines. That is why "$55M", or "$12B" is posted, garnering eyeballs and rhetoric.
This does not mean that serious thinking and actions are not going on this issue. Such activities and discussions just do not drive attention or "hits'. And anyway, who wants to respond to extremists?
Posted by: Terry McCormick | 02/20/2012 at 02:44 PM