ABSTRACT
The pharmaceutical company strives hard to control the clinical trials of its drugs which are an essential part of its drug development programme and which will enlarge throughout the life-span of their patents. For a middle-ranking French pharmaceutical company, the cost of human pharmacology and clinical studies accounts for 40 per cent of the total research and development budget. The batteries of pharmacological tests hide our ignorance about preclinical experimental models and only show a pharmacological action far removed from the desirable action in patients. Among 250 drugs, 225 are the results of development studies without previous research, and only 25 results from an attempt at innovation. This is probably because company managements find it difficult to decide, on the one hand, what resources should be allocated to research and to the development of new drugs, and, on the other hand, how they should orientate this research strategically.
