How much has the can­cer R&D fren­zy trans­lat­ed in­to drug ap­provals? A lot

When the FDA for­mal­ly launched the On­col­o­gy Cen­ter of Ex­cel­lence in 2017, it marked the cul­mi­na­tion of years of en­cour­ag­ing and fa­cil­i­tat­ing speedy can­cer drug de­vel­op­ment. And ac­cord­ing to a new study, the ef­fects are trans­lat­ing to new drug ap­provals.

Joseph Di­Masi

Tufts’s renowned Cen­ter for the Study of Drug De­vel­op­ment has ded­i­cat­ed its lat­est bi-month­ly analy­sis re­port to quan­ti­fy­ing the surge of new on­col­o­gy prod­ucts from 2010 to 2018. Re­searchers found that can­cer drugs ac­count­ed for 27% of all new drug ap­provals in the US, a steep spike from 4% in the 1980s.

This dra­mat­ic growth out­paced that of an­ti-in­fec­tives, car­dio­vas­cu­lar and CNS drugs, they added.

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