Contrary to past drug company pronouncements, the cost of clinical trials makes up a small fraction of pharmaceutical drug development costs, a new study concludes.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the average cost for trials in the Food and Drug Administration’s process for approving new medications is $19 million. That compares to the $2 billion to $3 billion total cost of developing a new drug, according to the study.
The analysis, which was published in the Sept. 24 edition of JAMA Internal Medicine, indicates that clinical trial costs make up less than 1 percent of the overall drug-development costs.
Drug companies frequently cite the cost of clinical trials to explain the high prices they charge for new drugs, researchers said, but few studies have looked in detail at these costs.
“The cost of generating this fundamental scientific information is surprisingly low given the total cost of drug development and the high price tags on many drugs,” G. Caleb Alexander, a Bloomberg associate professor and senior study author, said in a prepared statement.
