The endless frontier? The recent increase of R&D productivity in pharmaceuticals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Studies on the early 2000s documented increasing attrition rates and duration of clinical trials, leading to a representation of a "productivity crisis" in pharmaceutical research and development (R&D). In this paper, we produce a new set of analyses for the last decade and report a recent increase of R&D productivity within the industry.

Methods

We use an extensive data set on the development history of more than 50,000 projects between 1990 and 2017, which we integrate with data on sales, patents, and anagraphical information on each institution involved. We devise an indicator to quantify the novelty of each project, based on its set of mechanisms of action.

Results

First, we investigate how R&D projects are allocated across therapeutic areas and find a

SUBMITTER: Pammolli F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7147016 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature