Six Late Stage Drugs That Bit The Dust Recently

(RTTNews) - It takes between 12 to 15 years and costs a staggering $2.6 billion to develop a new medicine. The process involves a series of stages of clinical trials. The phase III trials are not only the most-expensive but also the most time consuming as well.

According to a 2012 study by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, about 90% or more of the cost of developing a drug from the lab to market shelf goes towards phase III trials.

So failure of drugs during phase III or abandoning the drugs midway through the phase III trials could prove a costly disappointment for a pharma company and more so if it is a small firm.

Here are some of the names of biotech companies that recently abandoned their phase III drug trials and their stock price reactions.