U.S. vs. EU: Who's Better at Getting Drugs to Market? Does It Matter?

Joseph DiStefano of the Philadelphia Inquirer looks at the recent research of Dr. Donald Light, a visiting professor at Stanford, with an eye towards the debate over whose system of drug development, Europeans' or Americans', is the more productive.

Light reassesses the work of researchers Henry Grabowski and Richard Wang, who concluded a few years back that enhanced free-market conditions in the U.S. had allowed pharma and biotech companies here to get more drugs to market more quickly.

Not so fast, says Light. In his work, Light figures in the sheer amount of money spent on development (much higher in the U.S.) and whether or not the drugs that got to market really made a difference beyond what drugs were already available to consumers--or, as is often the case, they simply added one more product to the mix.

Dollar for dollar, Light says, and despite more prevalent government cost controls, European development is the more efficient system. (PhRMA wholeheartedly disagrees, as DiStefano's article notes.)

Regardless of which side of the pond you're on, and which public-private system of drug development you lean towards, the research from Grabowski, Wang, Light, et al. points to a greater need, everywhere, for increasing the quality and efficacy of drugs approved. Says Light about the U.S., "only about one in seven new drugs are better than existing drugs." Even if you question his methods, motives, or accuracy, it's a sobering statistic to consider, and a reminder that Quality by Design thinking is needed to keep our attention on what's important--getting truly better drugs to market, faster and cheaper than before, everywhere in the world.

--Paul Thomas