For years the industry quoted one number for a day of trial delay: 4millioninlostsales.It′swrong.Thatfigurecamefrom1990sblockbustermath,andTuftsCSDD′s2024analysisof645drugsputtherealnumberat4 million in lost sales. It's wrong. That figure came from 1990s blockbuster math, and Tufts CSDD's 2024 analysis of 645 drugs put the real number at 500,000 to 800,000aday(Smithetal.,2024).Smaller,butitlandsontopofthe800,000 a day ( Smith et al., 2024 ). Smaller, but it lands on top of the 55,716 a day it already costs to run a Phase III trial. Miss a Phase III timeline by three weeks and that's $1.17 million in direct costs alone, before a single delayed sale.