2 ms·

I attended a recent talk of a leader in bringing drugs to market (not naming names). The current trend in pharma is moving away from R&D to S&D. i.e. Search and

I attended a recent talk of a leader in bringing drugs to market (not naming names). The current trend in pharma is moving away from R&D to S&D. i.e. Search and Develop. They search for promising molecules developed by startups or by government, then develop that into a final product manufacturing process. Most of the research drug failures are committed by third parties and do not cost big pharma anything...shoukd not contribute to the cost of drugs

shanacarp 10y ago
Very true, and radically underdiscussed as an issue. Part of me really wants to know if it is Actually Cheaper for BigPharmaCo to offset research costs to university/government/startups and then do a Merger/Acquisition to get the promising drug past a certain phase (what have you) vs costs to do research in house. Is lawyering and banking the process to get a drug to market BEFORE final approval really that much cheaper, or is this an accounting slight of hand issue? What is the actual cost minus marketing to develop a drug and bring it to market that created this situation. Furthermore, what is the cost of marketing on the books for drug companies that also would drive R&D into third parties. Marketing costs are really not cheap - and they have been rising, especially as more prescription drugs are advertised to consumers. How much of this cost is also driving cost cutting/offset of risk? (especially wondering since these issues appear appears the recall + no more manufacturing of Avui-Q. The auto-injector issues that caused the recall were untraceable/not replicatable at the Sanofi factory - and seem to be based on descriptions user error driven - and lower than the user error/failure rate of EpiPen. Meanwhile, Sanofi isn't the inventor - Kaléo/pair of brother founders is/are, and they brought nearly the exact same injector technology to market by themselves for heroin overdose. Sanofi just licensed the technology - and in the wake of the recall, decided to forfeit the license. I'm wondering how much of that deal's provisions killed the Auvi-Q, since it appears the issues behind the injector are long term fixable and profitable)

shanacarp 10y ago

Very true, and radically underdiscussed as an issue. Part of me really wants to know if it is Actually Cheaper for BigPharmaCo to offset research costs to university/government/startups and then do a Merger/Acquisition to get the promising drug past a certain phase (what have you) vs costs to do research in house. Is lawyering and banking the process to get a drug to market BEFORE final approval really that much cheaper, or is this an accounting slight of hand issue? What is the actual cost minus marketing to develop a drug and bring it to market that created this situation. Furthermore, what is the cost of marketing on the books for drug companies that also would drive R&D into third parties. Marketing costs are really not cheap - and they have been rising, especially as more prescription drugs are advertised to consumers. How much of this cost is also driving cost cutting/offset of risk? (especially wondering since these issues appear appears the recall + no more manufacturing of Avui-Q. The auto-injector issues that caused the recall were untraceable/not replicatable at the Sanofi factory - and seem to be based on descriptions user error driven - and lower than the user error/failure rate of EpiPen. Meanwhile, Sanofi isn't the inventor - Kaléo/pair of brother founders is/are, and they brought nearly the exact same injector technology to market by themselves for heroin overdose. Sanofi just licensed the technology - and in the wake of the recall, decided to forfeit the license. I'm wondering how much of that deal's provisions killed the Auvi-Q, since it appears the issues behind the injector are long term fixable and profitable)