that is total R&D cost divided by successful drugs. So think, a lot of failed candidates, dumb ideas, and since pharma is siloed and closed, duplicated effort between different companies' skunk works. Also, regulatory burden for things that are lifestyle drugs (think: viagra) is understandably higher than a chemotherapeutic.
The actual cost of getting a chemotherapeutic developed is about 1-2 million in preclinical, and 12-20 million through clinical. Counting lots of inefficiencies, and, as I discuss downthread, we're stacking the deck in our favor.
Indeed, though your broader point is correct, clinical is more expensive and I think ultimately that should be done by a for-profit entity. But crowdfunding can nudge things in that direction by completing the preclinical.
Of course it's including the failures, we don't know whether your candidate will succeed. I'm reasoning in terms of the expectation value of the a success: the cost of one project such as yours, divided by the probability of it creating a useful drug.
"The actual cost of getting a chemotherapeutic developed is about 1-2 million in preclinical, and 12-20 million through clinical. Counting lots of inefficiencies, and, as I discuss downthread, we're stacking the deck in our favor."
That's only part of the equation. What's the probability that it fails preclinical or clinical trials? What are the historical success rates for chemotherapeutics? (Serious question)
edit: I've Googled up what I think is a relevant statistic? According to this source, of cancer drug candidates which completed US clinical trials between 2004-2011, 6.7% of the ones which entered phase I ended up as approved drugs (the rest failing out). Apparently this is much worse than non-cancer drugs, which have a 12.1% rate.
The actual cost of getting a chemotherapeutic developed is about 1-2 million in preclinical, and 12-20 million through clinical. Counting lots of inefficiencies, and, as I discuss downthread, we're stacking the deck in our favor.
Indeed, though your broader point is correct, clinical is more expensive and I think ultimately that should be done by a for-profit entity. But crowdfunding can nudge things in that direction by completing the preclinical.