Source: Independent Institute
by Raymond J March
“A new report from Unleash Prosperity, a free-market policy group, makes a bold and welcome claim: reforming the FDA could unlock trillions of dollars. The authors’ biggest target isn’t safety testing. It’s the years the FDA spends proving a drug actually works. Trim one year off that process, they estimate, and we generate more than $10 trillion in value to patients and producers. Trim six years, and the figure climbs past $60 trillion. … It takes roughly a decade for a new drug to clear the agency. Most of that time isn’t spent proving the drug is safe. It’s spent proving it works. Developing one now costs nearly $880 million on average, closer to $1.2 billion for cancer and eye treatments, and about 90 percent of trials fail. Meanwhile, the report notes, China has cut its lab-to-trial timelines by 50 to 70 percent and runs clinical trials 50 to 60 percent cheaper than we do.” (07/14/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/14/blueprint-bigger-medical-bureaucracy/