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0 pointsRetric10y ago0 comments

Pfizer, on the other hand, told the Financial Times that the company's dealings with Theranos were limited. "We've done only very limited historical exploratory work with Theranos through a few pilot projects,

So, the root of this could simply have been poor reporting not deception. I mean you generally don't do multiple pilot projects with vaporware and Pfizer is a huge drug company.

PS: 400M is a lot of money, but probably not enough to do much R&D and start jumping though the hoops if the FDA get's picky.

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dbcooper10y ago

A prototype device probably costs $150k to $200k to build, so $400M should buy an enormous amount of R&D!

RetricOP10y ago

Matthew Herper recently totaled R&D spending from the 12 leading pharmaceutical companies from 1997 to 2011, and found that they had spent $802 billion to gain approval for just 139 drugs: a staggering $5.8 billion per drug.

Granted, we are talking about medical devices, but as soon as the FDA wants clinical trials things get damm expencive and 400M is a drop in the bucket. 200K is about a weeks budget for a well staffed modern lab. Sure, you can get a minor iteration in a week, but nobody is going to send anything down the pipeline without a lot more research than that.

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