Recent news
October 2011
NIH aims to accelerate drug development
October 26, 2011 -- Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today that the agency aims to eliminate bottlenecks in drug development that can slow the process of getting products to market. Speaking at the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists annual meeting, Collins cited discouraging drug development statistics: only one in every 10,000 compounds discovered is approved, and it takes 14 years and $1.2 billion for it to actually reach the market. To accelerate drug development and streamline the process, the NIH has proposed a National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to spur innovation and new technologies.
According to Collins, NCATS would help improve development, testing, and implementation of diagnostics and therapeutics to help fight a wide range of diseases. Collins has assured policymakers that the center will not require any new funding, as it would combine existing government components. NCATS would also not compete with the private sector. "NIH doesn't want to predict the future of medicine," Collins said, "just enable it." The Senate supports the proposed NCATS, but no bill supporting the center has been introduced in the House.
