Или быстрое определение бесперспективности (дальнейшей) разработки. Примерно так. Вот понятное объяснение:

According to some estimates, it costs over 800 million dollars to develop a new drug. Over the past 20 years, the success rate of drug development has declined. There are several reasons for that, including work on less validated, novel targets with limited availability of appropriate animal (disease) models and some focus on chronic diseases which require long-term treatments. Thus, the main goal of biomarker-driven drug development is to predict drug-efficacy more quickly and to “kill early” a drug candidate, if necessary.
http://tinyurl.com/qxmubzr

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Note added at 5 час (2014-12-15 13:03:45 GMT)
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Еще примеры:

In order to maintain speed-to-market and minimizesunk costs there is a ‘kill early and kill quickly’ mentalitywhen screening drug candidates. To develop biosimilars orbiosuperiors, a more rapid and efficient way to assess drugcandidates and to rapidly produce product for analytical andtoxicology studies is needed.

The new "kill early and often" paradigm used by large pharmaceutical companies will almost certainly increase the likelihood of false negatives. Our technology might save drugs that might be aborted that are late blooming blockbuster drugs or kill drugs early and save lives as well as millions of dollars invested in clinical trials. Aborting a clinical trial early can save tens of millions of dollars. A late blooming blockbuster drug, e.g. Lipitor, resulted in a $1 billion dollar drug. We are, therefore confident that this technology is poised for commercialization and use by a larger strategic partner with the resources and needs to proceed at an accelerated pace.

Если хочется перевести образно, то из наших фразеологизмов по смыслу близко "убить/пресечь в зародыше", КМК. Или "пресечь на корню", как Андрей предложил.

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Note added at 6 час (2014-12-15 13:49:34 GMT)
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Впрочем, фразеология в переводе вряд ли понадобится. "Политика/стратегия/тактика/философия раннего отказа (от соединения-кандидата или разрабатываемого препарата)" - этого вполне достаточно в большинстве контекстов, КМК.