What Does It Cost to Create a Cancer Drug? Less Than You’d Think
What does it really cost to bring a drug to market? The question is central to the debate over rising health care costs and appropriate drug pricing. President Trump campaigned on promises to lower the costs of drugs.

What does it really cost to bring a drug to market?

The question is central to the debate over rising health care costs and appropriate drug pricing. President Trump campaigned on promises to lower the costs of drugs.

But numbers have been hard to come by. For years, the standard figure has been supplied by researchers at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development: $2.7 billion each, in 2017 dollars.

Yet a new study looking at 10 cancer medications, among the most expensive of new drugs, has arrived at a much lower figure: a median cost of $757 million per drug. (Half cost less, and half more.)

Following approval, the 10 drugs together brought in $67 billion, the researchers also concluded — a more than sevenfold return on investment. Nine out of 10 companies made money, but revenues varied enormously. One drug had not yet earned back its development costs.