Drug Discovery: Controlling the Rising Cost Through Outsourcing

Our latest infographic touches on a subject we care deeply about: the cost of drug discovery and the need for cost-effective research and outsourcing services. Scientist was founded to address alarming trend in the pharmaceutical industry; rising R&D spends despite a declining rate of new drugs to market.

In light of the recent struggles, layoffs, and restructurings, it is clear that there are many inefficiencies with the current drug discovery process; it is too expensive, too inefficient, and too risky. Pharma has resorted to trying to buy their ideas, but that does not change existing procedural problems internally.

We believe that one of the answers to the high cost of discovery is to outsource effectively to contract research organizations (CROs). As seen in the infographic, almost every area of research has many CROs and an enormous price range. Drug discovery and research can be done any way you want it: cost efficiently via competitive bidding, high quality via ratings and pre-ordering discussions, locally via location-based queries, or a combination of all three. Effective outsourcing by company scientists will allow the scientist more time to analyze their own results and to gather the input of experts worldwide. A small group of lead scientists in a pharmaceutical company can run a drug discovery program using the bevy of online tools, whether it is data sharing, an online laboratory, or discussion forum.