The cost of cure.

We talk a lot about Big Pharma, and not always in the nicest terms. But, to be fair, it takes mega cash to support the preclinical development and subsequent large-scale clinical trials necessary for life-prolonging cancer therapies to enter the market. So many argue that their means (successful drug development) justify their ends (skyrocketing prices). Last week’s JAMA investigation aims to determine just how much financial “burden” is taken on by Big Pharma in its efforts to bring these blockbuster cancer drugs to market. The authors examined all research and development (R&D) costs across entire portfolios of 10 publicly-traded pharmaceutical companies from date of an initial compound discovery to its FDA approval. Median total R&D cost, a majority of which was spent on failures, was indeed high: $757 mil when factoring in opportunity costs. But how does this compare to median revenues, you ask? Oh, that was a cool $1658 mil...as in >2 times these companies’ entire R&D cost...as in a rough profit margin of >50%. This century has already seen incredible strides towards curing cancer, but truly translational science calls for more than medicine. And this article indicates that Big Pharma’s means don’t come close to justifying their ends.