Innovation Today

Pharmaceutical discovery has benefited from a remarkable revolution in technology, from its early beginnings with the introduction of aspirin to the discovery of drugs that target specific genes that cause disease. Today, pharmaceutical innovation looks very different than it did 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or even just 10 years ago.

The journey from laboratory to medicine cabinet has become more challenging, risky, and expensive than ever before. Researchers are tackling increasingly complex diseases using new tools (such as genomics, proteomics, and nanotechnology) that will take years to bear fruit. As the cost of discovering new medicines has risen, an increasingly challenging healthcare environment is making it harder for companies to recover these costs.

The pace of scientific discovery has increased exponentially in recent years, while new medicines addressing unmet medical needs continue to be developed and approved for clinical use. In the last ten years, over 300 new medicines became available, and over 2,950 are in development today.

Key Issues
Learn about the key challenges facing pharmaceutical innovation and discovery today, including the integration of new technology, finding more efficient and cost-effective means to develop new drugs, and innovating within a complex regulatory environment.

Recent FDA Approvals
What's new in pharmaceutical innovation? Here you can find the latest “New Molecular Entities” (NMEs) and biological products approved by the FDA this year. These drugs offer new approaches to treating disease.

Then & Now
It’s easy to forget, but treatments we might take for granted today did not exist at one time. A patient with cancer would consider his diagnosis a death sentence. Another patient with arthritis would look forward to a lifetime of pain and disability. So much has changed. The contrast between treatments of yesteryear and today highlights how far we have come, as well as the importance of continued innovation.

Great Moments in Innovation
Explore an interactive timeline of some of the most important medical breakthroughs of the past century.

Innovation in Rare Diseases
Nearly 350 medicines have been approved for rare diseases since 1983. Today, the number of medicines in development designated as "orphan products" more than doubled from 208 in 2000-2002 to 425 in 2006-2008. Learn why we’re seeing this trend, how it’s helping patients, and what the future holds.

The Age of Personalized Medicine

Learn more about how personalized medicine is rapidly having an impact on how drugs are discovered and developed; how patients are diagnosed and treated; and how healthcare delivery is channeling its resources to maximize patient benefits.