Drug discovery becomes slower and more expensive over time.
Moore spelled backwards, and deliberately named as a counter-trend to Moore's law. Scannell and colleagues found drugs approved per billion dollars of R&D halved roughly every nine years from 1950: output per inflation-adjusted dollar fell exponentially even as many enabling technologies improved.
In practice
- A pharmaceutical company spends more per approved compound each decade while every input technology gets cheaper.
- A research organisation's output per pound falls steadily as its screening, review and compliance layers each add a defensible step.
- Standing
- Moore spelled backwards.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Economics & Incentives
- Essay
- The regularities money obeys