Recent statistics from the pharmaceutical industry provide information about why it costs so much (1.2 billion dollars) to develop new medications.

• Average time for experimental drug to go from lab to patients: 10-15 years
• Only 5 in 5,000 compounds that enter preclinical testing make it to human testing
• Only one of those five is approved for use in humans
• Of approved drugs, only one in five makes more than the costs of development
• FDA applications typically run more than 100,000 pages

Source: PhRMA Report 2012: Medicines in Development for Cancer

“I want a new drug …
One that don’t cost too much…
I want a new drug
One that does what it should
One that won’t make me feel too bad
One that won’t make me feel too good”

–Huey Lewis and the News: “I want a new drug”