The costs may be inflated but the actual costs are probably not that different than tufts. Several other studies suggest pharma is getting a return on its r&d i

The costs may be inflated but the actual costs are probably not that different than tufts. Several other studies suggest pharma is getting a return on its r&d investment of under 5% (a Deloitte and McKinsey study as well as a Novartis one). Pharma is also cutting internal r&d because they can't get a return. They buy drugs from startups instead which does not show up in the profit and loss statements In 2018 only like 12% of new FDA approved drugs were developed by big pharma. 63% were developed by small companies. A negligible amount / zero were developed by universities The $161M figure cited in that nytimes study is not at all representative because most early stage r&d is done outside of big pharma, and then big pharma buys the drugs and markets them If drug research was profitable pharma would be doing more of it, not less