The average cost of bringing a new drug to market has reached an all-time high. Combined R&D and commercialization costs are approaching $900 million per drug, on average. The pharmaceutical industry's R&D and marketing functions -- which historically have operated in silos -- must begin to work in unison to trim development and commercialization costs, according to a recent report published by pharmaceutical business research firm Cutting Edge Information.

With rising drug development costs and increasing political pressure to reduce the cost of prescription drug medications in the United States, it is incumbent upon pharmaceutical companies to find new ways to lower development and commercialization costs while simultaneously meeting Wall Street's profit expectations.

Cutting Edge Information, a leading pharmaceutical intelligence firm, recently examined the increasing link between marketing and R&D in its new study, "Early-Stage Pharmaceutical Marketing: Uniting R&D and Commercialization." The report reveals that a handful of leading firms is adopting a new set of organizational structures, operating processes, and development tools to tear down traditional barriers between R&D and marketing and enable the two functions to complement and support each other.

The study includes more than 250 metrics, including early-stage commercial budgets, staffing, strategies and tactics from 14 top pharmaceutical companies including Pfizer, Novartis, Merck, Aventis, and Eli Lilly. In addition to marketing spending patterns, the report also includes financial and staffing allocations for brand teams, strategic marketing, medical and regulatory affairs, key opinion leader management, competitive intelligence and advocacy management departments by development phase and drug size.

"One of the greatest strategic challenges facing project teams today -- particularly in the early development stages -- is setting a commercial activity plan and backing it with adequate budgets and staff to do the job," says Jon Hess, senior analyst at Cutting Edge Information. "This report shows companies what their competitors are spending and which commercial milestones they are hitting at each development stage from pre-clinical through NDA submission."

A free summary of this 151-page report is available.

Cutting Edge Information provides research and consulting to two groups the pharmaceutical industry and firms interested in cross-industry research.