Futility Theory: The Quick-Kill™ Model

Futility Theory: The Quick-Kill™ Model: The Quick-Kill™ model assumes drug discovery is a stochastic process. The simplest form assumes drug discovery to be a binomial process w...

© Dennis Lendrem, 2011

The Quick-Kill™ Model

The Quick-Kill™ model assumes drug discovery is a stochastic process.  The simplest form assumes drug discovery to be a binomial process with probability of discovery p such that the expected number of failures before the first success has a geometric distribution with a mean of 1/p. 

The following discussion considers the simplest case where the development process is divided into two phases.  However, the Quick-Kill™ model can be extended easily to include multiple decision points, multiple therapeutic targets, a range of time and development costs, and first-to-market considerations.  In the discussion, the probability of success is 0.10.  However, this can be changed to reflect differences in probabilities from one therapeutic area to another.  The model has been tested assuming estimated lifetime values of a compound that is first to market as $400m compared to $100m for compounds that are second to the market place.   If a successful compound is missed as a result of poorer decision making the strategy incurs development costs associated with the rejection of that compound but we see no return on that investment.  The model is robust to these assumptions.

From Molecule To Market

As drug development costs spiral it is worth remembering that only one in 4000 compounds ever reaches the market and it takes around 12 years to develop a new drug.  But with a compound capable of grossing US$2 billion per year every day of lost sales costs US$8 million. 

Not surprisingly then project teams often feel under immense pressure to get a molecule to market as quickly as possible.  Which is a pity, since this is not their job.  Rather, the job of the project team is to make go/no-go decisions as quickly as possible.

Pharmaceutical Development

More Haste, Less Speed


Getting products to market in the shortest possible time has become an obsession within the industry.  And the arguments for accelerating development speed are compelling.  Cutting one month from the development life-cycle translates to an extra month of patent protected sales.  But while development speed is crucially important, an obsession with development speed to the exclusion of all else can run a company into the ground.


"It is no good getting useless products to market quickly."

Mike Emmanual, Director R&D, Janssen Pharmaceuticals UK

One of the dangers of the current obsession is that maximizing development speed may actually increase the expected time to marketing authorization approval.  This is known as the Development Speed Paradox.  How does this arise?