[aaavl2821]

That's a widely criticized study because it ignores the cost of failure. It only looks at the r&d investments of companies that received FDA approval for a drug. It's like doing a study of the odds of winning the lottery, and only analyzing people who won the lottery

Considering the fact that 90% of phase 1 drugs never get approved and that study seems quite biased. That study conveniently assumes that all those medicinal chemists, who've worked decades and never seen a drug approved, simply don't exist

[User23]

Interestingly this contributes to why drug companies spend so much money on advertising: it has a predictable measurable return, whereas R&D is virtually a lottery.