Why ‘Do Something’ on Gun Control Won’t Work - WSJ Opinion

The high approval cost—now estimated at $2.6 billion per drug—also means rarer diseases receive little research attention.

Article cites an FDA approval rate of 12%. So after pharma goes through years of R&D spending, and recovering costs for unapproved drugs, they have to price in another $2.6B just to break even.

But when talking about reducing drug costs, this is expense is never brought up.