ABSTRACT
IX. POPULATION TOXICOKINETICS 251 X. SUMMARY
REFERENCES
I. INTRODUCTION The pharmaceutical companies throughout the world are undergoing the big gest upheaval in their history. With mergers and buy outs, thousands of jobs have been lost and analysts feel that many small companies without a certain critical mass will either be swallowed up by the bigger fish or just sink to the bottom of the pool and disappear. In contrast, the larger companies have re alized that they cannot afford to invest increasingly large amounts on research and not only are they critically appraising staffing levels, but also the question able need of certain currently undertaken development studies. Costs are con tinuing to increase-a new drug costs between $200-300 million-but the re turns in terms of new drugs are falling as governments everywhere are cutting their health care expenditures. Only a small fraction of drugs synthesized enter development and it has been estimated by analysts at Lehmann Brothers that less than 3% of all drugs that do finally reach the market achieve sales figures of $500 million within 5 years, the figures necessary to make the total invest ment worthwhile.
