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Cost of developing new drugs may be lower than industry claims: trial

Exclusive: MSF calls for transparency after its bill for a trial of TB treatment came to a fraction of the billions claimed by pharmaceutical companies

Doctors have for the first time released details of their spending on a major clinical trial, demonstrating that the true cost of developing a medicine may be far less than the billions of dollars claimed by the pharmaceutical industry. He added: “We encourage clinical trial sponsors and implementors to try our Transparency Core toolkit, and to build on it as a guide to facilitate the publication of cost data. Although MSF’s trials took place in middle-income countries, the costs were not low, said Scourse, because they had to invest substantial sums to upgrade infrastructure – such as TB clinics – to be able to conduct high-quality research.

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