Effective new drugs don't come cheap but could they come cheaper?

One billion dollars is the number typically cited as the average cost of bringing a new drug to market. It s a nice number for the pharmaceutical industry, Matthew Herper writes in Forbes, because it seems to justify the idea that medicines should be pricey ¦without making it seem that inventing new medicines is so expensive ¦as to be ultimately futile. However, Herper cites a recent investigation that puts the average cost of each new drug at something more like $4 billion. His point, ultimately, is that there is no need for the cost to be this high. And while we agree that it s important to bring the $4 billion average cost to light, we wish Herper had a few suggestions as to how that expense can actually be minimized.

In the course of his op-ed, Herper walks his readers through the expenses of drug development, acknowledging the clinical trials required of each new drug, as well as a failure rate of over 90 percent. He ends his observations with a theoretical incentive, noting, If a drug company could promise to invent new medicines for $55 million a pop, its stock price would soar like Apple s.

Herper has new figures, but he s not the first to have thrown down this particular gauntlet. What we d really like to see is a discussion of how or whether such a feat is possible. Yet ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross does note that at least Herper s piece calls attention to what s problematic about the pharmaceutical industry s approach to research and development instead of merely blaming the precautionary obstacles presented by the FDA.