title: Spending on postapproval drug safety.
abstract: Withdrawals of high-profile pharmaceuticals have focused attention on post-approval safety surveillance. There have been no systematic assessments of spending on postapproval safety. We surveyed drug manufacturers regarding safety efforts. Mean spending on postapproval safety per company in 2003 was 56 million dollars (0.3 percent of sales). Assuming a constant safety-to-sales ratio, we estimated that total spending on postapproval safety by the top twenty drug manufacturers was 800 million dollars in 2003. We also examined, using regression analysis, the relationship between the number of safety personnel and the number of initial adverse-event reports. This study offers information for the debate on proposed changes to safety surveillance.
authors.affiliation: Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA. david.ridley@duke.edu
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Ridley
authors.forename: Judith M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Kramer
authors.forename: Hugh H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Tilson
authors.forename: Henry G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Grabowski
authors.forename: Kevin A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Schulman
mesh_terms: D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D017277:Drug Approval / Q000191:economics*; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D011358:Product Surveillance, Postmarketing / Q000191:economics*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012449:Safety; D014481:United States