How New Medicines Are Made – And Why Cutting Research Hurts Everyone
💡 Wondering how new medicines are made?
We created a 2-minute video, The Climb, for No Patient Left Behind to explain it visually:
👉 Watch the full video
How New Medicines Are Made: Every Cure Starts With a Funded Idea
If we want more cures, we need more ideas.
And if we want more ideas, we must fund research.
Scientists in university labs generate the knowledge that drives new treatments. They test early theories. They explore what no one else has. These first steps are fragile. Without funding, the journey never begins.
That’s where how new medicines are made really starts—far before any clinical trial or company launch.
We Visualized How New Medicines Are Made – Here’s Why It Matters
To explain this clearly, we turned the process into a mountain climb.
- Each base camp represents a key scientific milestone.
- The summit stands for the few drugs that reach patients.
- The climb itself shows how difficult it is to get there.
Without early support, no one builds the base camps.
And without those, no one makes it to the top.
This simple metaphor helps people outside science finally grasp how new medicines are made.
Cutting Research Funding Stops Progress Before It Starts
Let’s be honest – cutting science budgets kills momentum.
When funding dries up, early-stage projects disappear.
Young researchers move on. Promising leads stall out.
Patients end up waiting for drugs that never come.
If fewer people start the climb, fewer discoveries reach the summit.
That’s not just a theory. It’s a fact.
Therefore, if we care about lives and health, we must consider the process of creating new medicines from the outset.
We Often Celebrate the Outcome – But Forget the Climb
When a new drug gets approved, we cheer. But we rarely look back.
We forget the decade of research that made it possible.
We overlook the funding that kept it alive in the early stages.
And we ignore the quiet scientists who pushed forward when no one was watching.
That’s why we made this video – to remind people what it takes.
Watch the Video: How New Medicines Are Made
👉 Watch The Climb – a short animation that shows how new medicines are made, from early research to final approval.
Want to dive deeper into why early-stage research matters so much?
👉 Read more about the importance of the NIH here
