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

Say I run 10 trials that cost 10m each but only one of these finds a drug that works. How much did the trial cost to discover that drug? How much did it cost to discover that drug? 10m? 10*10m?

10M. Failure is still useful information so the other 9 trials cost 10M each but didn't produce a viable product, but that doesn't mean nothing of value was gained.

With just 10M in bank, you will fail and learn a lot.

So like any business. Just because 90% of restaurants fail doesn't mean the cost of running a restaurant is 10x of what it actually takes to run a successful one.

Restaurants fail very differently from drug trials.

They run at some % loss for a while until money or investor patience runs out.

A drug trial that fails can be a 10 year process of shoveling money in a pit, none of it to be ever seen again.

It's a businesses famous for its low succes rates, which can be from start to end less than 1 in 100.

Drug companies need to offer those who provide the capital to run these experimental projects at huge losses for years a way to recoup their losses - otherwise nobody would be willing to fund the effort.

The way to do that is patent and charge absurdly high prices for those few succesfull drugs that are developed for as long as you can.

Sounds like a losing strategy for most customers and businesses

Why not pool costs and split profits. Everyone gets less.. less risk, less losses, less profits.

Why have only a single winner get the proceeds of getting a winning lottery ticket, when everyone could band together, buy all the tickets, and split the proceeds?

You're describing mining pools and they're incredibly popular for their profitability compared to trying to find a winning lottery ticket on your own.