Saturday, June 12, 2004

A Cure For Clinical Trials

Another good article on the high costs of delayed pharmaceutical clinical trials. This McKinsey article appears to be based on similar information as the EyeForPharma article I discussed earlier and has some additional statistics and analysis that make it worth a read.

A few of the more interesting figures:

1. More than half of all US clinical trials from 1993 to 1998 missed their deadlines by at least a month.

2. A failure to get enough patients in time accounts for 85 to 95 percent of all days lost during clinical trials.

3. Delays can cost pharma companies at least $800,000 a day in lost sales for a niche medication, such as Amaryl, an oral antidiabetic treatment, and as much as $5.4 million for a blockbuster like Prilosec, a gastrointestinal medication.

4. Taking a single month off a trial by improving recruitment could generate an additional $40 million in sales for an average drug.


excerpts taken from McKinsey's A Cure For Clinical Trials

No comments: