Payback phase

Should pharma have taken a better look before it leapt to that particular next S-curve Probably. Dr Brown s editorial concludes that it appears that there are unsolved problems with both the observation led and the hypothesis led approaches and these are holding back the discovery of new small molecule medicines... Resolution of these problems could lead to a more satisfactory payback phase of the new S-curve. And we must hope that this new S-curve, which appears to have started at a performance level below that of the old one, does indeed have the potential to overtake its predecessor. ... 

After operation and sales have been proven, the solvent recovery may be brought back in-house. A cost analysis of doing this in the third year improves the economic analysis. The estimate showed that the in-house solvent recovery could be done for 2M and would improve the profitability in the fourth year to 4.0M. The revised project, done in two phases, has an overall IRR of 42%, a payback of 2 years, and an NPV of 13.0M. 

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