Are Clinical Trials Really That Costly? These Researchers Say They Don’t Have to Be

Despite the often-cited estimate (generated by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development) that it costs $2.6 billion in drug development expenses to bring a new pharmaceutical product to market, a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that drugmakers may not need to invest a lot into clinical trials in order to get their drugs approved by regulators. The findings could challenge pharmaceutical companies’ assertions that drugs must be priced higher in order to help recoup the cost of clinical development.