Eroom's law: $1B of R&D once yielded ~50 new drugs, now it yields about one
sebkrier · x · 2026-11-14
A new HARD DRUGS episode with Salonium asks whether Eroom's law (Moore spelled backwards) will crush AI-accelerated progress: in the 1950s, $1B of R&D produced roughly 50 new drugs; today it yields about one. Inflation-adjusted R&D cost per new drug has roughly doubled every nine years.
Possible explanations discussed: rising evidence standards and safety-testing requirements via regulation and risk aversion; low-hanging fruit already picked, leaving harder diseases. The episode examines what this means for the "AI will fix drug development" narrative.
Related event: Podcast Asks Whether AI Can Reverse Eroom's Law in Drug R&D(2 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Nathan Lambert: premature 'this is AI' claims are wrecking the AI discourse — natolambert · 2026-11-14
- Ex-SSI researcher: rampant cyberattacks are inevitable in any AGI scenario — minhnguyen · 2026-11-14
- Hinton Warns EU Leaders in Dublin: Superintelligence Will Control You, Not Vice Versa — Chris_Armstrong · 2026-11-14
- Google's Multi-Agent Systems Solve Open Problems in Math and Chemistry, Now External — pycui64 · 2026-11-14
- Humans controlling superhuman AI is like eight-year-olds running society, writer argues — binarybits · 2026-11-14
- AI finds shared metabolic signature of five lifespan-extending treatments in mice — Dr_Singularity · 2026-11-14