The costs of research and development of new chemical or biological entities (NCBE) are rising continuously. On one side scientific progress and the application of new technologies make research an increasingly complex process with inherent considerable risks of failure; on the other hand stricter international safety requirements call for increasingly longer evaluation and test periods for new products.
Today, 10 - 12 years elapse before a new drug reaches the medicine chest. Out of 10'000 substances going into pre-clinical tests, only 5 get so far as to be tested on humans. Only one of these 5 clinically tested substances is eventually marketed.
Rising research costs are not exclusively found in the pharmaceutical area; they rise in nearly all areas of the chemical industry. As an example, the development of a new active ingredient for crop protection costs on average 300 mio CHF (2002), which is 30% higher than in 1995. One third of these costs is used for testing the eco friendliness of the new product. |
