Drug Approval Rates Grow With Deal Up-Fronts

An analysis of approved drugs that emerged from licensing deals over nearly a decade may upend conventional thinking. Long considered a drug development graveyard, alliances for compounds that treat CNS disorders were more likely to result in drug approvals than any other therapeutic category. Not as surprising: nearly half of the deals that resulted in an approved product featured up-front payments below $25 million, but the odds of developing an approved drug increased as up-front payments became larger.

There's a 1-in-10 chance that any drug candidate in Phase I will be approved by the FDA. Those chances get...