US publication provides wrong calculation of development costs of cancer drugs
A significant cost component is not taken into account
In a recent study, the US physicians Vinay Prasad and Sham Mailankody from clinics in Portland and New York have calculated the average research and development costs for cancer drugs too low. This is demonstrated by methodological deficiencies in their work: the authors base their research on a sample of only ten start-up pharmaceutical companies. Nine out of ten were developed for orphan cancer types that require far fewer trial participants to test than those for the treatment of common cancers, which reduces pre-approval costs.
Above all, however, the authors only take into account costs incurred after the invention of the respective active substances; they largely ignored the expenses for the development of a new active substance over the years (based on the findings of basic research). Other studies have shown that this section of the study is worth several hundred million US dollars (e. g. an average of 674 million US dollars according to SM Paul et al.; Nature online, 2010).
Dr. Siegfried Throm, Managing Director Research/Development/Innovation of the Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (vfa) comments:"The investigation of Prasad and Mailankody, which does not take into account significant cost positions and uses an unsuitable sample, is not a serious contribution to the discussion on the research and development costs of cancer drugs.".
Original publication
Vinay Prasad, Sham Mailankody; "Research and Development Spending to Bring a Single Cancer Drug to Market and Revenues After Approval"; JAMA Intern Med; online publiziert am 11.09.2017.
Steven M. Paul et al.; "How to improve R&D productivity: the pharmaceutical industry's grand challenge"; Nature online; 2010, S. 203 - 214
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