The Impact of Collaborative and Risk-Sharing Innovation Approaches on Clinical and Regulatory Cycle Times

During the past decade, high risk, cost, and inefficiency have driven pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to enter into collaborative and shared innovation approaches, including mergers and acquisitions, joint development, and in-licensing. These approaches can interrupt the drug development process and affect program-level clinical and regulatory cycle times. To examine these potential impacts, detailed development histories were obtained for 289 new molecular and biologics entities that received FDA approval between 2000 and 2011. Approximately half the drugs analyzed had their clinical development activity interrupted by a collaborative or shared innovation approach, with in-licensing as the most common. The total duration (clinical plus approval phases) for interrupted development programs was 20% longer-an additional 14.8 months (median)-than that of uninterrupted development programs ( P < .05). Approval phase length differences between uninterrupted and interrupted programs were not statistically significant. The results of this study provide important benchmarks and new insights for portfolio planning, forecasting, and management.