The gold industry standard for risk and cost of drug and vaccine development revisited

Gold dimensions of pharmaceutical drug development indicate that it takes on average 11.9 years, with an investment around US$ 0.8 Billion, to launch one product on the market. Furthermore, approximately 22% of the drug candidates successfully complete clinical testing. These universally acknowledged proportions largely originate from one single, much cited publication: Dimasi et al. [5]. However an additional six articles describing new chemical entities (NCE) development were identified, which contain little, if any, information on vaccines. Published cumulative success rates range from 7% to 78% and investments calculations span US$ 0.8 to 1.7 Billion. Obviously this disserves further clarification? (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved