Exclusive: MSF calls for transparency after its bill for a trial of TB treatment came to a fraction of the billions claimed by pharmaceutical companies
Doctors have for the first time released details of their spending on a major clinical trial, demonstrating that the true cost of developing a medicine may be far less than the billions of dollars claimed by the pharmaceutical industry.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is challenging drug companies to be transparent about the cost of trials, which has always been shrouded in secrecy. Its own bill for landmark trials of a four-drug combination treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis came to €34m (£29m).
