Much of the existing hype in biotech has concentrated around the promise of revolutionising drug discovery. After all, the last decade was a so-called golden age in the field. From 2012 to 2021, compared to the prior decade, an increase of 73% new medicines were approved — 25% more than the one before that. These medicines include immunotherapies for cancer, gene therapies, and, of course, Covid vaccines. On the face of it, the pharmaceutical industry is doing well.
But there are increasingly worrying trends. Drug discovery is becoming prohibitively expensive and risky. As of today, it costs between $1bn-$3bn on average and 12–18 years to bring a new drug to market. Meanwhile, the average price of a new medicine has skyrocketed from $2k in 2007 to $180k in 2021.