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2020 FDA drug approvals

The FDA approved 53 novel drugs in 2020, the second highest count in over 20 years.
  1. Asher Mullard
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Despite the disruptions caused by COVID-19, the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) approved 53 novel therapeutics in 2020. This is the second highest total ever, falling just short of 2018’s all-time high of 59, and tying with the 1996 approval cohort (Fig. 1).

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Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 20, 85-90 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41573-021-00002-0

Updates & Corrections

  • Update 18 January 2021: Information on the financial performance of the new drugs approved and the characteristics of the reviews by the FDA has been added to the article, with an additional column in Table 1 and Figure 4.

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