A November 13 presentation at the Boston offices of DuaneMorris, by Japanese pharma giant Takeda, addressed to a group of life science and healthcare investors, contained stark facts concerning the cost and difficulty of creating new, significant drugs outside the orphan drug niche.

The cost today to bring a new major drug to market averages about $2,800,000. In 1950 you could bring to market almost one hundred new major drugs for a billion dollars; today, not even one. The presenter suggested that we were experiencing Eroom’s law; in other words, Moore’s Law in reverse!

Takeda is looking for ideas leading to marketable pharmaceuticals. They may proceed either by funding academic research (with some technology rights to Takeda) or, alternately, investing through convertible promissory notes.

Takeda’s 2008 acquisition of Millennium Pharmaceuticals is not unusual, as big pharma is expanding through acquisition ; it is common knowledge that internal development of block-buster drugs has become too expensive and time consuming to remain a major focus of these larger companies.