Why don’t the biopharma’s simply develop these discarded drugs themselves?

Because their clinical trial failures are so painful!! Across life science innovative companies of all sizes the successful develop of a drug candidate becomes a feather in the cap of those working on it. Meanwhile, the near inevitability of drugs' failure in development in traditional companies is rarely mentioned. It has been and likely will always be the case that following a drug's failure the drug is ignored... and the degree corresponds to the amount of financial and human capital deployed to the effort. 

Also, because investors link the company with its latest clinical trial results it behooves the biopharma to discontinue the drug. This is standard practice, despite how management and its drug development team may feel about their drug.

In almost every situation, because Eryvo has a near zero cost basis and the drug asset is one catalyst away from being valued on its successful trial, most Eryvo assets are not developed in the same indication where it failed and was discarded by the biopharma. Companies appreciate generating value for their assets, especially when it is an indication that may not afford sufficient return when considering the hundreds of millions dedicated to the drug.

And finally, depending on the new indication, there are cases where the biopharma that discontinued the failed clinical asset later reacquired the same asset after it has succeeded clinically. 

How often are clinical stage drugs discarded and why? 

There are almost two late-stage clinical assets discarded every business day. Contrary to the expectations of most biotech investors they are discarded due to efficacy less than 25% of the time, and for safety reasons ~5% of the time... where Eryvo is least likely to be interested.

Late-stage trial terminations, 2013-2023

Source: Stifel, Biopharma Market Update, 11/24/25 & 1/8/26 (per Capital IQ)

Source: www.nature.com/articles/d41573-025-00208-6 (Published 12/18/25; Per Epistemic Knowledge Graph, data through 5/15/25. Measured trials terminated early… there were more that were terminated after completion.) Per author’s email: Covid’s impact on terminations was minimal.

Covid drove a surge of investment into life science companies, however those companies needed more money in their latest development stages while investors recognized this and withdrew their involvement. This sparked an unprecedented reduction in the number of -Enterprise Value companies and a reduction in publicly traded biotech's.

Covid fallout drove a surge in -EV biopharma companies