Why Drug Development Is Becoming Faster, Smarter, and Safer
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the world in many ways. One of the more underrated ways that the pandemic impacted the world was how it transformed drug development. In the pre-coronavirus world, it would take 10 - 15 years — and often hundreds of millions of dollars — before a new drug could reach the market.
But the coronavirus pandemic changed that. It demonstrated that new drugs could be developed quickly without cutting corners. Today, the drug development industry sits in that new climate, and it’s continuing to evolve. In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at just some of the many ways in which drug development is becoming faster, smarter, and safer.
It’s Faster Without Cutting Corners
In the drug development of the past few decades, the process would jump from one step to the next. In many cases, it simply wasn’t possible to start work on the next stage until the first one had been fully signed off on.
Today, separate stages of the drug development process can occur simultaneously. That helps the entire process feel a lot more connected at every stage of the journey, and it also helps to reduce delays. With multiple things happening at once, decisions — and identifying problems — can happen much earlier in the process.
Smarter Tools Are Doing Some Heavy Lifting
There’s long been hope that data and AI can be a game-changer for drug development. Today, we’re beginning to live in that reality. The industry is increasingly not only utilizing smarter tools that can significantly speed up various aspects of the drug development process, but also having increased confidence in the outcomes. With more accurate data that scientists can have faith is correct, a lot of the guesswork that often accompanies drug development has been set to one side. In its place are talented people working with insights that they can trust.
Safety Standards Are Higher Than Ever
Safety standards are higher than ever, but crucially, they’re also happening at many more stages of the drug development process. At every point, there are countless safety tests being conducted as standard, such as identifying host cell contaminants in biologic manufacturing and checking quality at every step. This helps to streamline the journey towards market, but it also simply helps researchers to understand what they’re working with on a deeper level, earlier than ever. What used to be periodic safety checks has become a mainstay of the entire process, and that greatly elevates standards.
There’s A Big Rise In Collaboration
It wasn’t so long ago that pharma companies would keep their intellectual property a secret even when it didn’t offer any meaningful competitive advantage. That’s beginning to change. Today, we see significantly more collaboration, and it genuinely does feel as if the boundaries between companies and organizations are lighter than they ever have been. Companies are also including regulators in the process as early as possible, which again helps to speed up the journey to market, since it reduces the risk of a late-stage delay or rejection.
