E-drug: WTO on access to medicines (cont)
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Pierre Chirac has a good point about the often cited figure of $500
million for developing a new medication. This figure is an extrapolation
of a number that came from a 1991 study updated to 2001 to account for
inflation. However the 1991 study only included a very small number of
drugs: those that were developed entirely in-house by American owned
pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, it excluded drugs that were
developed in cooperation with public institutions, drugs that were
developed by nonAmerican companies, drugs that were licensed in
(developed by another company but marketed by an American company) and
all new drugs that were not new chemical entities. Furthermore, over
half of the costs were opportunity costs, i.e., money that was never
actually spent but represented the return that the companies would have
gotten by investing their money somewhere else instead of in research.
--
Joel Lexchin MD
121 Walmer Rd.
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5R 2X8
T: +416-964-7186
F: +416-923-9515
e mail: joel.lexchin@utoronto.ca
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