Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

STA_Alexfree t1_izyyr5q wrote

Reply to comment by HindsightIs4040 in [OC] Visualising Pfizer's latest income statement. Pharmaceutical profit margins are notoriously higher than most other industries by giteam

I work for Pfizer’s oncology R&D group and they’re pretty good at only spending money to develop the most promising drugs and killing off projects early that won’t likely produce a viable drug (like 90% of projects)

5

[deleted] t1_izz5p5y wrote

That’s really interesting. How early or late in the development process do they kill off drugs? Or does it just depend

1

STA_Alexfree t1_izz6eow wrote

Can be anytime really and there’s lots of “go/no-go” checks along the way but the vast majority get killed off before human clinical trials. That is one of the largest costs for drug R&D

3

[deleted] t1_izz7im7 wrote

Yeah, I remember seeing stat a few years back that for every drug that makes it to market, close to 19 are cancelled before that point. Partially why completed drugs are priced so high before the patent runs out

1