Failures during the drug development process—most of which happen in phase 2 clinical trials—account for 75% of total research and development expenses, according to the National Academy of Sciences. The ability of biopharma executives to spot likely failures earlier in the development process could not only cut costs, it could also help transform some R&D roadblocks into future successes.

A successful “fail fast” strategy starts long before a drug candidate is ready to be tested in people. Companies can adopt several strategies to validate drug targets, such as looking for published research that contradicts their theories about how a compound might effectively combat a disease, using computer models to identify potential problems in preclinical drugs, and improving the analysis of efficacy signals recorded during phase 1 safety trials. This earlier focus on efficacy might also provide opportunities for revising R&D strategies to boost the probability of success.

This Fierce webinar will bring together executives with expertise in biopharma discovery, R&D and clinical trial design to discuss the benefits and challenges of the fail-fast strategy. It will include representatives of companies that have implemented such a strategy successfully and can provide advice on what did and did not work.