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Previous Volume 356:1292-1293 March 29, 2007 Number 13 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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When Pfizer announced that it was halting clinical testing of its new cholesterol drug, torcetrapib, the company's market value fell by $21 billion overnight. Ten thousand job cuts followed. The ongoing promise of nearly $3 billion in annual sales vanished when Merck pulled Vioxx (rofecoxib) from the shelves, and the company's market value fell by $25 billion. For decades, blockbuster drugs have nourished Big Pharma, but it is increasingly uncertain whether they can be counted on to support the industry in the future.

Prescription medications are extremely costly to develop and market. The cost of bringing a new drug to . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Dr. Cutler is a professor of economics at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

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