Some daunting statistics from the last decade: 38 percent of phase 3 trials failed; 59 percent of trials did not advance from phase 1 to phase 2 and 35 percent of trials entering phase 2 did not move to phase 3.

“Most drugs are in clinical phases for five to seven years,” said Ken Getz, director of sponsored research programs at the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. “This is extremely costly — but not easy to calculate since it includes the cost of all phase 1, 2 and 3 activity. ... The typical drug costs several hundred million dollars in direct costs to carry through all clinical testing phases.”