In the current issue of Equities Magazine there is an article entitled:

From Discovery to Drug Store: The Road to Commercialization

I cannot put the entire article in here...but here are a few interesting bullet points.

It takes 10-15 years to get a drug to market and costs over $800 million.

Today, the FDA oversees products that account for 25% of all consumer spending, about $1 trillion per year.

...testing is used to find out how it breaks down in the body, its level of toxicity, and the speed at which it leaves the body.

Drugs often fail during Phase II trials because they aren't effective or they're too toxic.

There is much more, but those two sentences above show that it is assumed that the drugs tested WILL BE TOXIC, and that it is just a matter of how much.



I reckon it best to stay away from most anything that has a page or two disclaimer in a magazine advert.

Kevin,

That's a huge amount, no wonder they are living the American Dream

Henrii

Ironically enough, some of my girlfriends and I were having a discussion about this very thing over the weekend.

The husband of one of my friends is a bio-chemist. The company he works for does preliminary testing of new pharmaceuticals. He has been expressing feelings of anxiety because the pressure is on to get these drugs approved before all the necessary testing has been completed. He said many times, he and his team are forced to take short-cuts and sign off on testing before results are conclusive.

If his company is being pressured to act this way, so are many others. Afterall, if they cannot get the testing done as quickly as the client wants, the client will just find another firm that will.