“The extortionate cost of trials is used to justify high prices of new medicines, but companies do not publish either the topline or a breakdown of their spending.”
MSF ran the trials behind a drug-resistant TB regimen now used in 40 countries for €34m. Industry estimates for bringing a medicine to market run as high as €3.9bn, and nobody outside the companies gets to check the math. Bedaquiline, one of the four drugs, was built on public funding five times larger than the private investment. Pharma prices on a cost it refuses to show.