Formation | 1976 |
---|---|
Founder | Louis Lasagna |
Type | Independent, Academic, Non-Profit Research Center |
Purpose | Researching drug development |
Location | |
Director | Kenneth Getz |
Website | csdd |
The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development is an independent, academic, non-profit research center at Tufts University in Boston, dedicated to researching drug development. It was established in 1976 by American physician Louis Lasagna.[1] The Center develops and publishes information to help researchers, regulators, and policy makers in areas related to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. In any given year, approximately 55% of Tufts CSDD's operating expenses are supported by grants from the private sector and 45% from the public sector.[2][3]
The Center studies trends in the pharmaceutical industry, maintaining databases pertaining to investigational new drugs, approved drugs, biopharmaceuticals, fast-tracked drugs, and orphan drugs.[4] The Center provides this information with the aim to improve the efficiency of drug development, foster innovation, and increase patient access to medicines.[5]
The center has published numerous studies estimating the cost of developing new pharmaceutical drugs. In 2001, researchers from the Center estimated that the cost of doing so was $802 million,[6] and in 2014, they released a study estimating that this amount had risen to nearly $2.6 billion.[3] The 2014 study was criticized by Medecins Sans Frontieres, which said it was unreliable because the industry's research and development spending is not made public.[7] Aaron Carroll of the New York Times also criticized the study, saying it "contains a lot of assumptions that tend to favor the pharmaceutical industry."[8] The center's 2016 estimate, published in the Journal of Health Economics, found the cost to have averaged $2.87 billion (in 2013 dollars).[9]