​What does the drug development industry have in common with every other major industry sector?  When it comes to product development, on the surface very little! Nostrapharmus explores this in more detail

In 2006, almost 500 products were launched every day across all other sectors - that's a 50% increase from 2005 and almost 100% from 2004.  Yet, in that same period, the combined might of the pharmaceutical industry, the greatest R&D force in the world, both by numbers and dollars spent, launched just 21 active substances.  Nostrapharmus notes that what makes this picture even bleaker is the fact that R&D spend has increased annually.  The industry spent 100% more in 2006 than 2000, yet launched half the active ingredients.  So, is the industry failing to innovate?  Are their structural impediments that are driving down the rate of innovation?  Or has the industry simply run out of good ideas?  Some would argue that all three are true, yet this hides the real truth.  Products that are launched are no less successful than in the past; the conversion rate at which actives are taken to market is about the same as in the past, but regulation changes have slowed the pace at which they enter the market.  New techniques and methods are appearing: in fact, all the evidence suggests that RNA-based chemistry, computer-modelled drug discovery, or event Raman spectroscopy, with its ability to investigate drug delivery in completely new ways, will open up a new cycle of drug discovery.  We are at the beginning of the next wave, even as we end the last one. 

To read this article in full, please click on the pdf link below:

Drug Pipeline Sustainability.pdf

or to read the magazine, please click on the link below, the article can be found on page 58

http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/9978d7ea#/9978d7ea/59

About Pharma Magazine