Why dont the pharmaceutical companies get drugs approved for minor species?
It has been estimated that it costs $2-8 million for a pharmaceutical company to add a new species to an existing drug label. The Companies feel that the size of the minor species market does not justify this expense. MUADP [NRSP-7] has been able to do the studies required by FDA for a fraction of that cost. The reason for this includes the facts that MUADP [NRSP-7] is allowed by the drug manufacturer to use proprietary data, such as toxicology, towards the approval and that the infrastructure for such studies is usually supplied by host universities whose faculty are collaborating plus producer cooperation and participation in field trials. To make minor species more attractive to pharmaceutical companies a coalition known as the Minor Uses Minor Species Coalition [MUMS] was created to lobby Congress to approve legislation to provide a series of incentives to promote the involvement of the pharmaceutical industry.
