New Pharmaceutical R&D Compendium

Financial investment in worldwide pharmaceutical R&D has increased from$5.4 billion in 1981 to $22.3 billion in 1991, an estimated $32.2 billion in 1995 and a projected $35.3 billion in 1996, according to the new Pharmaceutical R&D Compendium, published in the UK by CMR International and PJB Publications.

There is no consensus on what is the critical mass in terms of R&D spending, the Compendium notes, but over the past five years, the leading pharmaceutical companies have steadily increased the percentage of their sales invested in research to almost 16% by 1996, compared with an average 9% for the rest of the industry.

Number Of NMEs Declining But has this increased financial commitment increased the success of R&D? The Compendium shows that the number of New Molecular Entities has, In fact, declined in recent years. Since 1980, it says, the drug industry has successfully launched a total of 1,260 NMEs on to the 20-country market surveyed, an average of 45 a year in the 1970s, increasing to 52 a year in the 1980s. However, during the seven years of this decade, the average number of NMEs first launched per year has decreased to 41.