3 ms·
The 90s is also around the time when we pretty much ran out of small molecule blockbuster drugs (the very profitable but low hanging fruit) and started shifting
by akiselev 11y ago
The 90s is also around the time when we pretty much ran out of small molecule blockbuster drugs (the very profitable but low hanging fruit) and started shifting over to much more complex multi-drug therapies like those for HIV and cancer. There are still a few such small molecule candidates left but the major markets like blood pressure, heart disease, arthritis, etc. are very saturated. As the clinic trials start to target more complex diseases with more complicated drugs and therapies it adds a large confounding factor to the decrease in the number of successful trials.
- acveilleux 11y agoI think you make a very salient point. From the abstract: > We identified all large NHLBI supported RCTs between 1970 and 2012 evaluating drugs or dietary supplements for the treatment or prevention of cardiovascular disease. So this is for a narrow field where there are effective drugs already and where all the low hangoing fruits are fully picked because the business opportunity is huge.