Speedy Drug Approvals Have Become the Rule, Not the Exception

Congress has over the past few decades passed a series of special approval pathways for important drugs that treat life-threatening or rare diseases. This week, a new bill introduced in the House could add 2 more.

You might expect these existing special programs to represent a small fraction of new and unusual drugs. But data from the FDA show that a majority of recent drug development has been in therapies that qualify for at least one of these programs. About a third of recently approved drugs qualify for 2 more of 5 special approval programs.

A great interactive graphic mapping research by Aaron Kesselheim and Jonathan Darrow on the website of the New England Journal of Medicine allows you to slice the data a few different ways.

Read more at The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1dCK1D5