Pharma research stalling; science "hard"

"The low-hanging fruit is all gone, and the unique opportunities are difficult to come by," said Irwin Lerner, a former chief executive at Hoffmann-La Roche, a Swiss drug maker with U.S. headquarters in Nutley. "There's been a real failure that, despite billions of dollars in investment, research hasn't conquered the diseases that haunt us."

Or, as Woodcock, director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, says, "Some of these things are going to be really hard."

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