4 ms·
Clinical trials are never low cost. Even small scale studies with a few subjects can climb in eye-watering numbers.
by HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
Clinical trials are never low cost. Even small scale studies with a few subjects can climb in eye-watering numbers.
- Cpoll 6y agoWhy? Not that I don't believe you, but I can't get a back-of-the-envelope estimate to go that high (certainly from lack of knowledge on my part). But I'm picturing the kind of study you see in posters on mass transit: "Are you X, Y, and Z and suffering from W? You might be eligible for experimental treatment. Call this number."
- HeadsUpHigh 6y agoI remember a recent study on a new supplement that costed ~10k per subject for a 6 month trial. There's a lot of hidden cost wrt bureaucracy and other such issues.
- nabla9 6y agoThere is this joke about a guy who goes to patent office and says "I invented dynamite!". Patent clerk says: "But dynamite has already been invented." Guy: "I invented more of it." Drug development is like that. Huge sums of money is spent for creating slightly different molecules to create competitor for already existing drug. When someone discovers way to treat disease with drug. Competitors learn how the drug works and develop another molecule with similar function that circumvents patents. That money should be used to original drug research that is more risky and uncertain but it generates less profits.
- natechols 6y ago"Lower cost", I should have said. Skipping straight to Phase III helps.