Drug Innovation: The Research and Development Process

New data released this week, shows that the biopharmaceutical industry spent a record $65.2 billion on research and development for new medicines in 2008.  There is no question that the path from understanding a disease to treating it is long, difficult and expensive.  Scientists are now beginning to understand human disease at the molecular level.  The task of discovering and developing safe and effective drugs is even more promising as our knowledge of disease increases.

Typically speaking, it takes close to 15 years to develop one new medicine from the time it is discovered to when it is available for treating patients.  The average cost to research and develop each successful drug is estimated to be $800 million to $1 billion.  For every 5,000-10,000 compounds that enter the research and development pipeline, only one receives approval. 

These figures provide deeper understanding of the important research and development process and why it takes such effort to get just one medicine to patients.  There are many contributing factors of success for this process.  It requires the best scientific minds, highly sophisticated technology and immense resources, as the new information on research and development investments demonstrates.

It is through this process of drug discovery which brings hope and relief to millions of patients around the world.