STAT July 18, 2019
Waste and inefficiency in drug development are big problems. They can be hard to spot, especially when you are in the midst of the process. A new way of visualizing clinical trials might help.
Some experts believe that as much as 85% of biomedical research may be wasteful due to biases in study design, lack of publication, unnecessary duplication, or investigating questions of little importance. It is also estimated that only about one(or maybe two) of every 10 drugs that enter into clinical testing will turn out to be effective.
This rather depressing picture of productivity in pharmaceutical research has led to much head-scratching among scientists, ethicists, and policy researchers who are interested in making the enterprise more efficient. The...