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Drugs firms inflate research costs, watchdog says

Nature volume 412, page 571 (2001)Cite this article

A watchdog group has challenged the US pharmaceutical industry's claim that drugs cost an average of $500 million to develop. The actual cost, according to a report from Washington-based Public Citizen, is closer to $100 million. The group charges that industry lobbyists have misled Congress and the public to justify high prices.

According to the report, financial risks are lower because companies cherry-pick research from publicly funded laboratories. An internal document obtained by Public Citizen from the National Institutes of Health estimates that over half the research that led to development of the top five new drugs in 1995 came from the public sector.

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  1. Jonathan Knight
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Knight, J. Drugs firms inflate research costs, watchdog says. Nature 412, 571 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35088181

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