Matthew Herper recently totaled R&D spending from the 12 leading pharmaceutical companies from 1997 to 2011, and found that they had spent $802 billion to gain approval for just 139 drugs: a staggering $5.8 billion per drug.
Granted, we are talking about medical devices, but as soon as the FDA wants clinical trials things get damm expencive and 400M is a drop in the bucket. 200K is about a weeks budget for a well staffed modern lab. Sure, you can get a minor iteration in a week, but nobody is going to send anything down the pipeline without a lot more research than that.
Granted, we are talking about medical devices, but as soon as the FDA wants clinical trials things get damm expencive and 400M is a drop in the bucket. 200K is about a weeks budget for a well staffed modern lab. Sure, you can get a minor iteration in a week, but nobody is going to send anything down the pipeline without a lot more research than that.