Drugs are essential to helping treat the over 400 million people worldwide who suffer from some 7,000 diseases that have no effective treatment — yet new drug development is becoming increasingly difficult, costly and time consuming.
In the U.S., the number of new drugs approved per billion dollars spent on research has approximately been halved every 9 years since 1950, falling around 80-fold in inflation-adjusted terms.
This is why drug repositioning, which seeks new efficacies among existing drugs, is gaining in popularity. Over the last 5 years, repurposed drugs have accounted for 45% of drug approvals in the U.S., generating some $500 billion in annual revenue.
As new drugs become increasing difficult to find and bring to market, drug repurposing represents a critical source for big pharmaceutical companies to help bolster their late-stage development pipelines.
EMBARK HEALTHCARE’s portfolio of companies are proud to be at the forefront of this movement.