Biotech drug "costs $1.2 billion to develop"

A study by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development in the USA has produced its first estimate of the average cost of developing a new biotechnology product, which stands at $1.2 billion.

The Boston, Massachusetts-headquartered research group stated that the price tag was assessed by taking into account the cost of candidates that fail in testing, as well as the time costs associated with bringing a new biopharmaceutical product to the market. Tufts found that capitalized out-of-pocket preclinical costs totalled $615.0 million, whereas clinical trial period expenses were $626.0 million.

Joseph DiMasi, director of economic analysis at the Tufts CSDD, said: "while biotech offers significant promise in treating entire categories of disease for which no medicines previously existed, it comes at a significant cost."