Tufts Economist Documents Inefficiency of Patent System for Financing Drug Research

Joe DiMasi, a professor at Tufts University, presented the findings of a study updating his prior work on the cost of developing new drugs. He reported that the study estimated the average cost at $2.6 billion. It is worth noting that this figure only applies to a small fraction of drugs. DiMasi looked at drugs based on new chemical entities, which are less then 20 percent of all new drug approvals. He also is looking at drugs for which the drug companies paid for all the research (as opposed...