Drug development attrition

In this talk, the focus is drug development attrition, highlighting how high failure rates across pre clinical and clinical phases impact productivity, costs, and innovation. We will examine key reasons for attrition, such as efficacy, safety, commercial barriers, and the translational gap between preclinical models and human outcomes. Strategies for improving success will be discussed, including robust target validation, use of biomarkers, and collaboration among stakeholders. Finally, we will look at recent advances in oncology drug development and the evolving approaches to overcome new safety and regulatory challenges associated with innovative therapies. We will explore the critical issue of attrition in drug development. Attrition is the loss of drug candidates during discovery, pre clinical research and clinical trials, a process that is both inevitable and challenging. A 5,000 to 10,000 candidate molecules assessed early, often only one is approved. High failure rates diminish productivity and contribute to a crisis in pharmaceutical research and development, impacting innovation and burdening organizations, teams, and patients. Attrition is a persistent challenge at every phase. During the preclinical phase, out of thousands of compounds synthesized, only about 250 might progress to animal studies. Of these, only five to ten compounds reach human trials, and typically just one or two are approved. In clinical phases, attrition becomes more costly.