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>but logically there should be a point beyond which productivity gains outpace The limiting factor on drug approval is clinical trials. Once every living perso
by sbierwagen 5y ago
>but logically there should be a point beyond which productivity gains outpace
The limiting factor on drug approval is clinical trials. Once every living person is enrolled in a clinical trial, we will have hit the maximum rate at which humanity can produce new drugs.
That might be more than 10x the current rate, but probably less than 1000x.
- dekhn 5y agoIn principle you could put people into multiple trials and gain somewhat additional throughput. Google implemented putting users into multiple different experiments (paper by Tang et al) and that made a huge difference.
- perl4ever 5y agoThe number of people needed for a trial depends on the size of the effect. I think we have a warped idea of that, because of the practice of looking for a barely "statistically significant" effect from a substance that isn't really understood. If you have something that just eradicates a disease immediately, because you really understand what you are doing, you don't need very many tests to confirm it works.