Trends in US approvals: new biopharmaceuticals and vaccines

The efficient development and approval of new therapeutics and vaccines is vital to the health and welfare of patients. Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development has collected and analyzed data for new protein therapeutics and vaccines approved in the USA during the past decade. Our results suggest trends toward longer clinical and approval phases for the therapeutics, particularly for oncology products. In this Opinion article, we discuss various legislative acts and FDA initiatives that might improve the efficiency of drug development and approval. Furthermore, few new vaccines have been approved in the past 10 years owing, at least in part, to the lack of incentives for the development of the products. We predict that this might change in the future as government and industry respond to the twin threats of the global spread of infectious diseases and potential bioterrorism.