Even with today’s modern technologies and scientific approaches, advancing a new drug therapy from concept to clinic can average 10 years and cost over $2.5 billion, with a staggering 90% of candidates failing in pre-clinical and clinical phases.
These metrics are particularly unfavourable for diseases with poorly understood biology or where animal models inadequately predict human outcomes. The result is that patients endure long waits for innovations that frequently never reach them, while investment in rare or complex disorders has lagged due to the substantial risks and limited returns.
Medicines that are approved typically come with exorbitant price tags, as manufacturers seek to recover their losses from unsuccessful ventures and rebuild their research and development (R&D) coffers for future initiatives.
