Private Sector Contributions to Pharmaceutical Science: Thirty-Five Summary Case Histories

Abstract

Expanding government purchases of prescription medicines increase the likelihood of public policies constraining prices and/or the formulary choices available to the beneficiaries of government programs. This can be predicted to reduce private sector incentives for the research and development of new and improved medicines. One response to that argument has been the premise that most of the important scientific advances that yield new and improved medicines do not result from private sector research, but instead are the fruits of research efforts financed or conducted by public agencies, the National Institutes of Health foremost among them. This study addresses that argument by examining the development histories of 32 drugs and drug classes deemed important in the scholarly literature along with three additional specific drugs that have figured prominently in the public discussion of the role of the private sector in drug development. We find that for the discovery and/or development of virtually all of the 32 drug classes, the scientific contributions of the private sector were crucial; and the same is true for the three drugs that have received widespread attention. All or almost all of the drugs discussed would not have been developed-or, at best, would have been delayed significantly-in the absence of private sector scientific discoveries. More generally, both National Institutes of Health-sponsored and private sector pharmaceutical research are crucial for the advancement of pharmaceutical science and the development of new and improved medicines.

The impact of public basic research on industrial innovation: Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry

“…Armed with this public knowledge, the scientists at Squibb were able to synthesize the first ACE inhibitor in the early 1970s. Captopril was subsequently approved for marketing by the FDA in 1981 (for additional cases and discussion see Cockburn andHenderson 1998, 2001;Dustan et al 1996;Gambardella 1995;Henderson 1994;Maxwell and Eckhardt 1990;NIH 2000;OTA 1993;Scolnick 1990;Silverstein et al 1995;Zycher et al 2008).…”

The Impact of Public Basic Research on Industrial Innovation: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry

“…See Scherer and Harhoff (2000) and Vernon (1994, 1996) for an analysis of the distribution of sales revenue for NMEs. Cockburn (2006) Cockburn andHenderson 1998, 2001;Dustan et al 1996;Gambardella 1995;Henderson 1994;Maxwell and Eckhardt 1990;NIH 2000;OTA 1993;Scolnick 1990;Silverstein et al 1995;Zycher et al 2008).…”

The Role of Public-Sector Research in the Discovery of Drugs and Vaccines

“…Zycher et al 2 found that at least 80% of 35 major drugs that they studied were based on scientific discoveries made by PSRIs, whereas Toole 3 found a quantifiable correlation between investment in publicly funded basic research and corporately funded applied research: an increase of 1% in the funding of public basic research led to an increase of 1.8% in the number of successful applications for new molecular entities (compounds that have not been approved for marketing in the United States) 4 after a lag of about 17 years. Studies by Cockburn and Henderson 1 showed the complex relationships between public and private research in the pharmaceutical industry.…”