On average it takes ten years and billions of dollars to design one drug.

Judge against mainstream published estimates as of August 2025 of the time and cost to develop one new approved drug. These include DiMasi et al. 2016 (about $2.6bn, capitalised and including failures) and Wouters et al. 2020 (mean about $1.3bn), as well as standard industry and regulator figures for timelines. True: credible estimates put typical development at roughly ten years or more and costs in the billions or above $1bn. Treat "ten years" and "billions" as rough figures. Mostly true: one element is somewhat off, for example the commonly cited estimates are about $1bn to $2bn, or the typical timeline is 10 to 15 years. Mixed: one element is well supported and the other is clearly overstated or understated. Mostly false: the figures rest on real estimates but distort them substantially, for example treating outlier figures as the average. False: credible estimates show typical development takes far less than a decade and costs far below $1bn.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Estimated Research and Development Investment Needed to Bring a New Medicine to Market, 2009-2018 PubMed Central (JAMA, Wouters et al.) · 3 March 2020

   “the estimated median capitalized research and development cost per product was $985 million, counting expenditures on failed trials.”

2. E2 Average cost of developing a new drug could be up to $1.5 billion less than pharmaceutical industry claims London School of Economics (LSE) · 3 March 2020

   “The researchers behind this new study estimated that the median cost of bringing a new drug to market was $985 million, and the average cost was $1.3 billion.”

3. E3 Estimated Research and Development Investment Needed to Bring a New Medicine to Market, 2009-2018 PubMed Central (JAMA, Wouters et al.) · 3 March 2020

   “The mean cost of developing a new drug has been the subject of debate, with recent estimates ranging from $314 million to $2.8 billion.”

4. E4 Clinical development times for innovative drugs PubMed Central (review of FDA review documents; authors from FDA/NCATS-affiliated research) · 6 March 2013

   “Controlling for other development factors, the clinical development time of a typical innovative drug is 9.1 years (95% confidence interval (CI) = 8.2–10.0 years).”

E4 puts the clinical development time of a typical innovative drug at 9.1 years (95% CI 8.2–10.0). That figure covers only the clinical phase, so it supports a total of roughly ten years. On cost, E2 reports a mean of $1.3 billion and E1 a median of $985 million, the latter counting expenditures on failed trials. E3 notes that earlier mean estimates ranged from $314 million to $2.8 billion. Cost is above $1bn but toward the lower end of "billions", which fits the criteria's "about $1bn to $2bn" case for mostly true.