Deloitte, a consultancy, reckons that the internal rate of return on in-house R&D at a dozen big drugs firms fell from 10% a decade ago to 2% in 2019—below their weighted-average cost of capital of 7%. The average cost to bring a drug to market has increased by two-thirds since 2010, to some $2bn. And the forecast for peak sales for each new drug has also fallen by half over that period