Co-creation in health

Ever wonder how much it costs to develop a new drug? The independent, non-profit research group, The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, estimates US$2.6 billion, almost double the centre’s previous estimate a decade ago. But how accurate is this figure?

While the details of the study remain a secret, a press release, slideshow and background document on the Tufts website provide some insight into how this figure was calculated. Interestingly, only slightly more than half of this cost is directly related to research and development (R&D). US$1.2 billion are “time costs” – returns that investors might have made if their money wasn’t tied up in developing a particular drug.

So why is this debate important and why does it matter whether or not these estimate are correct?

These costs are used to justify high drug prices. These prices increasingly have the potential to disable health-care systems, create enormous opportunity costs (as funds that could be spent on other goods and services are diverted to purchase more and more expensive drugs), and place medicines out of reach of all but the most wealthy individuals or governments.

This is a reminder that the real issue is not how much it costs to develop a drug, but whether or not these drugs are worth the high prices pharmaceutical companies charge for them.

While advocates of a completely free market might see “just” pricing and all forms of price control as “medieval”, “socialist” or as suppressing innovation, others worry that drug prices bear little, if any, correlation with actual clinical value.

Rewarding innovation is necessary, but allowing drugs to be priced according to whatever the market will bear, rather than according to their benefits and cost-effectiveness, leads to inefficiencies, inequities and dramatic global inconsistencies.

Via Pharma Guy