U.S. approvals of new drugs hit a seven-year high last year as pharmaceutical companies responded to regulators’ demands for better safety data and avoided last- minute requests for more information.
The Food and Drug Administration cleared 30 new treatments in 2011 compared with 21 the year before, a Bloomberg review of agency records shows. Johnson & Johnson and GlaxoSmithkline Plc each had three products approved after no company had more than one medicine cleared in 2010.
More frequent approvals may help drugmakers overcome a rash of patent expirations. At least 21 medicines will lose a combined $11.5 billion in revenue as a result of patent expirations in 2012, including Paris-based Sanofi and Bristol- Myers Squibb Co.’s anti-clotting treatment Plavix, projected to see $4.5 billion in lost sales, according to Bloomberg Industries. Drugmakers will generate more than $4 billion in 2012 from products that were introduced in 2010 and 2011.
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