It’s shocking how many fail in phase 3. You don’t go into an eye-wateringly expensive phase 3 unless it’s blindingly obvious from phase 2 (dose-ranging trial) t

It’s shocking how many fail in phase 3. You don’t go into an eye-wateringly expensive phase 3 unless it’s blindingly obvious from phase 2 (dose-ranging trial) that you have a winner. Which phase 2 you don’t embark on unless you have good safety data from phase 1 (often a combined phase 1/2 if you can swing it so you some belief it is efficacious in humans). I once had a board member with 26 approved drugs from his long career at Roche. He told me “you don’t want to know how many failed after hundreds of millions had been spent. You’d be too discouraged.”