FDA new drug approvals strike 16-year high in 2012



By Ben Hirschler and Caroline Humer

LONDON/NEW YORK |
Mon Dec 31, 2012 3:55pm EST


LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. regulators authorized 39 new drugs in 2012, a many in 16 years, suggesting that curative makers are staid for expansion after losing billions of dollars in new years to general drug makers given of obvious expirations.

There were 8 approvals in Dec alone, including a new diagnosis from Johnson Johnson called Sirturo for drug-resistant illness authorized on Monday, a initial new TB drug in decades.

The curative zone badly needs a pick-up in capability as companies try to refill their medicine chests after complicated waste to general manufacturers, that have benefited from a fibre of obvious expirations that appearance in 2012. When generics go on a marketplace during a reduce cost, sales of name code drugs plummet.

The total of 39 new drugs and biological products authorized by a Food and Drug Administration compares with 30 in 2011 and usually 21 in 2010. At slightest 10 of a drugs had quick lane standing in 2012, that enabled them to be reviewed some-more quickly.

It is a top series given 1996, when 53 supposed new molecular entities won a immature light. For a striking on new drugs approvals see: link.reuters.com/nuz84t

The FDA has met and exceeded a drug examination goals underneath a Prescription Drug User Fee Act, in that drug companies assistance account a drug capitulation routine in lapse for an agreement by a Food and Drug Administration to accommodate regulatory deadlines, FDA mouthpiece Sandy Walsh pronounced in an e-mailed statement.

She pronounced a “pipeline of new drugs underneath growth stays clever and is growing.”

Major U.S. drug companies have mislaid about $21 billion in income this year from remunerative medicines entrance off patent, while a strike for European businesses is about $10 billion, according to ratings group Standard Poor’s.

This year’s expirations have enclosed Plavix, a heart drug done by Sanofi and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Seroquel, an antipsychotic done by AstraZeneca.

Winning capitulation from regulators, however, is usually partial of a conflict for drugmakers.

Investors will also be examination closely to see how a new drugs perform commercially once they strech a market, given securing remuneration for innovative medicines is an increasingly tough fight.

“The obvious bearing will be reduction going forward, though where there is still a small bit of doubt is how most improved a pipelines have turn and how clever a recently authorized products are,” pronounced Damien Conover, a executive of curative investigate during investigate organisation Morningstar Inc.

The 2012 approvals enclosed some medicines that are foresee by analysts to turn multibillion-dollar sellers, such as Eliquis for shortening cadence risk in patients with strange heartbeats from Bristol Myers-Squibb and Pfizer Inc.

But many others are for singular diseases, underscoring a drug industry’s increasing concentration on specialized, niche products.

They embody treatments such as a Kalydeco from Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc for a singular form of a lung commotion cystic fibrosis and Signifor from Novartis AG for Cushing’s disease, caused by over-production of a hormone cortisol.

The final drug capitulation of a year on Monday afternoon was for a drug to soothe symptoms of diarrhea in patients with HIV and AIDS done by Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

There are also enlivening signs that a pick-up in new drug approvals could continue in 2013. The European Medicines Agency pronounced on Dec 18 that it approaching 54 new drug applications in 2013, adult from 52 in 2012, 48 in 2011 and 34 in 2010.

(Editing by Jilian Mincer and Steve Orlofsky)

Source: Health Medicine Network