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refurb 7 months ago

Exactly.

I work in this field. Doing phase 3 clinical trials costs between $5,000 to $20,000 per patient per year.

This particular drug did a phase 3 with 423 patients for 2 years, so you're looking at a cost of $4M to $16M just for this one trial alone. Then add on top all the CMC (manufacturing) research that needs to happen, the regulatory filing work, etc, etc.

Unless someone has a few hundreds of millions sitting around, you aren't bringing a novel drug to market without external funding.

yread 7 months ago | parent [-]

When hospitals are contracted to do work in a clinical trial setting they take their costs and multiply it by 10 (at least). This was done in house with in house resources. This hospital has its own pharmacy that can synthesize drugs and give it to the patients. The pharmacy probably charged just the material costs internally and not for the time.

refurb 7 months ago | parent [-]

I don't know of any hospital pharmacy that has a full fledge biochemistry lab and production facility.

Drug production is very different from the typical work done in a hospital pharmacy.

yread 7 months ago | parent [-]

Of course they don't have capacity to make millions of pills. But they are GLP and GMP certified and make all kinds of custom stuff

https://www.avl.nl/en/preparing-for-your-appointment/departm...

https://www.avl.nl/en/preparing-for-your-appointment/departm...

https://www.nki.nl/research/facilities-platforms/bioanalytic...

refurb 7 months ago | parent [-]

All of those examples are at best pharmacies with compounding capabilities and/or sterile fill capability.

They aren't manufacturing any medicines in those pharmacies. They are buying final product and then preparing it for administration.

GLP and GMP certified don't mean they are manufacturing. GLP are lab best practices and GMP is manufacturing, but it covers a lot of ground, so a basic pharmacy can be GMP and all they do is prepare sterile product.