Leading companies are way ahead in new drug approvals and continue to rise – COVID vax proves they’ll keep rapid response times

The Pace of Development Finally, to press the case for dismantling the U.S. drug development system, opponents argue that the system is not effectively performing its core function: producing effective treatments and cures. Given that the leading drug companies came up with Covid-19 vaccines in record time, using breakthrough technologies, this case is much harder to make now. But undeterred, the Porter report states, “Rather than producing breakthrough, lifesaving drugs for diseases with few or no cures, most companies focus on small, incremental changes to existing drugs in order to kill off generic threats to their government-granted monopoly patents.”34 But in reality, new drug approvals have significantly accelerated. The FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s five-year rolling approval average stood at 44 new drugs per year in 2019, double the five-year rolling average of 22 drugs approved, as happened in 2009. And the number of drugs in development globally increased from 5,995 in 2001 to 13,718 in 2016.35 Moreover, the share of drugs that are new has risen since the 1970s, not fallen.36 At the end of the day, the America’s private-sector-led drug development system, coupled with the support of university research and the National Institutes of Health, has made the United States the medicine chest of the world, responsible for more new drugs than any other nation. As much as the drug populists would like us to think otherwise, the truth is the current system is not just working; it’s the envy of the world.