Bio Screening Industry News

LONDON, May 1 /PRNewswire/ — Pharmaprojects, the world’s leading source of business-critical intelligence on drugs in global R&D reveals that after a period of levelling off in recent years in the growth of the number of drugs in development, a new era of pipeline expansion may have begun. Pharmaprojects’ unique ‘Trends Search’ facility, which recently published its new data for 2007, shows a palpable increase in the number of drugs in R&D this year (see Graph 1 above)

As the above graph shows, there had been a period from 2004-2006 of relatively slow growth in the number of drug candidates being pursued, when compared to significant increases seen in the early part of the decade. There had been fears in some sectors that this lack of growth might have signalled a permanent change in the pharmaceutical industry’s fortunes and could even have signified a point at which growth might go into reverse. Hopefully however, this newest figure could represent the beginning of a brighter phase.

Pharmaprojects’ data shows that at this time last year there were just less than 400 fewer products under development within the industry, which considering the cost of bringing drugs through the development process, represents an increased investment of many millions of pounds. Pharmaprojects’ trends search also allows one to drill down into this information further and assess how this overall increase in drug development is reflected in the various stages of the R&D process (see Graph 2 above)

Perhaps the most encouraging result of this further analysis is that this increase is not ascribable to a large rise in the number of preclinical compounds, as is often the case, but that the largest increases are in the clinical stages of drug development. As preclinical compounds stand a relatively low chance of making it to the market, a larger increase here does not necessarily represent a particularly positive trend. However, once a compound makes it past the screening process to enter clinical trials, the possibility of it successfully reaching the market increases dramatically with each further stage achieved.

On a more cautionary note, one should remember not to jump the gun with such analyses. As Ian Lloyd, Managing Editor of Pharmaprojects, states, “One year’s worth of promising data does not mean an end to the industry’s woes. Trends by their very nature only emerge after a number of years, making next year’s figures crucial in determining whether we are seeing a sustained recovery or whether 2007 is merely a blip”. Nonetheless, any positive trend must begin somewhere, and this year’s data makes for encouraging reading indeed.

About Pharmaprojects

Pharmaprojects, the leading database tracking global pharmaceutical development from early preclinical study through to launch or discontinuation, has 27 years’ experience as an information provider to the industry. Pharmaprojects uses a fully-searchable application that allows you to pinpoint the specific information you are looking for, whether it be comprehensive drug profiles, a competitor’s pipeline or licensing opportunities.

About Pharmaprojects’ Trend Analysis

Pharmaprojects provides the unique and unparalleled ability to view trends in the pharmaceutical industry by taking a ’snapshot’ of the database every year since 1995, allowing subscribers to compare year-on-year data across a variety of searchable criteria including drug status, originators, countries, therapies, pharmacologies and more. All data and diagrams contained within this press release are taken directly from Pharmaprojects.

Pharmaprojects is available weekly on the Web and monthly via CD-ROM format. Further details on this story as well as a wealth of information including recent conferences, companies and drug targets are all available in Pharmaprojects’ Update Analysis newsletter. This, as well as a forum of other free information regarding pharmaceutical R&D pipeline intelligence and demo requests for Pharmaprojects, can be found at http://www.pharmaprojects.com