Medications development for substance-use disorders: contextual influences (dis)incentivizing pharmaceutical-industry positioning

Abstract

Given the well-entrenched business stance whereby the prospect of future profits in major markets largely determines drug-company R&D investment trajectory, strategic initiatives offering substantial reductions in the risks and opportunity (i.e., time and money) costs associated with SUD drug discovery are likely to be the most potent drivers for encouraging mainstream industry positioning in this therapeutic area. Such initiatives could originate from front-loaded R&D operational and back-loaded patent, regulatory, marketing and health-care policy reforms. These may be too involved and protracted for the turbulent pharmaceutical industry to entertain amid its recent retrenchment from psychiatric/CNS diseases and intense pressures to increase productivity and shareholder value.