RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Big pharma is set to keep signing bigger deals in 2024According to IQVIA data, in 2020, drugs from U.S. biopharma companies represented 42 percent of the entire early-stage drug pipeline, down from 47 percent in 2010. In oncology, the share of drugs in the early-stage pipeline from U.S. companies decreased from 55 to 45 percent between 2010 and 2020. The drug development and approval process is expensive, lengthy, and risky. Big Pharma's plooming patent cliff has intensified the issues Big Pharma is facing with its former reliance on in-house R&D.
According to a recent study, it costs $2.6 billion to develop a new drug. Drug development also takes 10–15 years. A paper in the American Economic Review studying cancer clinical trial investments reveals that lags in commercialization tend to cause pharmaceutical R&D investments to be redirected away from drugs targeting early-stage cancers. There are more incentives to focus on the development of late-stage, rather than early-stage, cancer drugs, due to shorter clinical trials for late-stage drugs and time to market.
Consequently late stage cancer clinical development companies, particularly those that are ready for the Accelerated Approval process and go-to-market activites, milestones that ONCY is reaching, are those late stage companies that Big Pharma are incentivized to acquire.