PhI may still be a killing field of failure but PhIII success rates have surged, signaling tectonic shifts in biopharma R&D
Those new drugs you see entering the clinic with such promise and pride still suffer from a consistently meager success rate. And while Phase II success rates have edged up only slightly, the odds have improved substantially for the drugs that are now going into Phase III.
That’s the bottom line from a new analysis done by CMR International, which has been sizing up the success/failure rates of 30 big and medium-sized biopharmas, a group that includes 16 of the top 20 players.
In an analysis of the most recent set of data stretching from 2010 to 2018, published in Nature Reviews, their analysts found that the success rate of drugs starting out in Phase I has been consistently bumping around in the mid-single digits for the past decade. Starting in 2010 through 2017 that rate has tracked steadily at a poor 6% to 7%.
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