Browsing by Author "Dimasi, JA"

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    R&D costs and returns by therapeutic category
    (Drug Information Journal, 2004-09-03) Dimasi, JA; Grabowski, HG; Vernon, J
    Objectives: This study examines the degree to which therapeutic class accounts for variability in drug development costs. It also scrutinizes how sales levels vary across the associated therapeutic classes for those drugs that have reached the marketplace. Data and Methods: A stratified random sample of 68 investigational drugs that first entered clinical testing anywhere in the world from 1983 to 1994 was selected from the pipelines of 10 pharmaceutical firms. Clinical period cost data were obtained for these compounds by phase. The sample consisted both of drugs that failed in testing and drugs that obtained marketing approval. We grouped the drugs by therapeutic category. Clinical period costs per approved new drug (inclusive of failures) were obtained for the analgesic/anesthetic, antiinfective, cardiovascular, and central nervous system (CNS) therapeutic classes. Worldwide sales profiles for new drugs approved in the United States from 1990 to 1994 over a 20-year product life cycle were computed based on IMS Health sales data. All costs and sales were expressed in year 2000 dollars. Results: Out-of-pocket clinical period cost per approved drug (inclusive of failures) for cardiovascular ($277 million) and CNS ($273 million) drugs was close to the overall average ($282 million). However, antiinfective drug costs were considerably above average ($362 million) and analgesic/anesthetic drug costs were modestly below average ($252 million). The results were qualitatively similar when the development timelines were used to determine capitalized (out-of-pocket plus time) costs. In comparison to the overall average of $466 million, the capitalized cost per approved drug was slightly lower for CNS ($464 million) and for cardiovascular ($460 million) drugs. The capitalized costs were $375 million for analgesic/anesthetic drugs and $492 million for antiinfective drugs. The mean net present values of life cycle sales for new drugs approved in the first half of the 1990s were $2434 million, $1080 million, $2199 million, $3668 million, and $4177 million for all drugs, analgesic/anesthetic drugs, antiinfective drugs, cardiovascular drugs, and CNS drugs, respectively. Conclusions: Development costs vary substantially from drug to drug. A drug's therapeutic class can explain some of that variability. The sales of new drugs by broad therapeutic category did not correlate well with average development costs. However, given the dynamic nature of pharmaceutical markets and changes over time in research and development (R&D) expenditure shares, the results are still consistent with a model of firm behavior that posits that R&D efforts will generally shift toward high net return, and away from low net return, therapeutic areas.
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    The cost of biopharmaceutical R&D: Is biotech different?
    (Managerial and Decision Economics, 2007-06-01) Dimasi, JA; Grabowski, HG
    The costs of developing the types of new drugs that have been pursued by traditional pharmaceutical firms have been estimated in a number of studies. However, similar analyses have not been published on the costs of developing the types of molecules on which biotech firms have focused. This study represents a first attempt to get a sense for the magnitude of the R&D costs associated with the discovery and development of new therapeutic biopharmaceuticals (specifically, recombinant proteins and monoclonal antibodies [mAbs]). We utilize drug-specific data on cash outlays, development times, and success in obtaining regulatory marketing approval to estimate the average pre-tax R&D resource cost for biopharmaceuticals up to the point of initial US marketing approval (in year 2005 dollars). We found average out-of-pocket (cash outlay) cost estimates per approved biopharmaceutical of $198 million, $361 million, and $559 million for the preclinical period, the clinical period, and in total, respectively. Including the time costs associated with biopharmaceutical R&D, we found average capitalized cost estimates per approved biopharmaceutical of $615 million, $626 million, and $1241 million for the preclinical period, the clinical period, and in total, respectively. Adjusting previously published estimates of R&D costs for traditional pharmaceutical firms by using past growth rates for pharmaceutical company costs to correspond to the more recent period to which our biopharmaceutical data apply, we found that total out-of-pocket cost per approved biopharmaceutical was somewhat lower than for the pharmaceutical company data ($559 million vs $672 million). However, estimated total capitalized cost per approved new molecule was nearly the same for biopharmaceuticals as for the adjusted pharmaceutical company data ($1241 million versus $1318 million). The results should be viewed with some caution for now given a limited number of biopharmaceutical molecules with data on cash outlays, different therapeutic class distributions for biopharmaceuticals and for pharmaceutical company drugs, and uncertainty about whether recent growth rates in pharmaceutical company costs are different from immediate past growth rates. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.