
Drug Development is going down hill since the pharmaceutical drug companies Merck & Co took the painkiller Vioxx off of market shelves around the
U.S. in 2004. Some drug companies which include Schering-Ploughs Chief Executive Fred Hassan and his top scientists say that they have stopped the process of making two drugs; one a cholesterol lower and the other, to help with obesity.
Hassan believes that the only way that they would be able to get a drug out onto the market is that if we spend more time and money. He thinks that the reason that drugs are not being passed is because of an intensifying focus on safety and a diminished tolerance for drug side effects; which was brought up at the food and drug administration.
“What will it take to get new drugs approved?” Hassan asked. “The point is, we don't know.”
Within the last year, 19 new medicines were approved by the FDA which is the least amount in 24 years. Along with the new drugs, the FDA also announced that there were 75 new or revised "black-box" warning which were about the side effects of the new drugs, which is twice the number in 2004.
Joseph Panetta says that the approvals of drugs aren't because of the drug industries is being less innovative, but more because the FDA doesn't have many staffers with a lot of experience, so they are trying to get more. This means that they don’t have very many people doing the testing so they have to slow down the process.
It seems to me that things are starting to go towards the positive side because of what’s happening. Because of the larger slow down in drug approvals the safeties of drugs are going to go up, hopefully.
Link to Original Artical:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080701/news_1n1drugs.html