RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Big pharma is set to keep signing bigger deals in 2024In April 2024 Deloitte reported on how the current R&D operating model within pharma continues to experience significant pressures. This is due to ongoing regulatory changes, the impending and unprecedented scale of the loss in exclusivity of high value drugs, and high inflation of supplier costs. Other challenges include the rapid pace of scientific advances, rising clinical trial complexity, and the costs of diagnostics.
Deloitte also reported that the average R&D costs to progress a drug from discovery to launch remains the same at $2.3 billion in both 2022 and 2023 and that the past 10 years have demonstrated that technology-enabled transformation in R&D productivity is still needed if this cohort are to reverse the decade-long trend of declining returns while continuing to deliver innovation for patients.
Consequently Big Pharma is moving to reverse their declining in-house R&D productivity through the acquisition of late stage biotech companies, which is faster and cheaper to acquire ready to be approved products, rather than developing products in-house, as had been the practice in the past.