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2005 drugs review: insufficient progress

Tangible therapeutic improvements for patients were few and far between in 2005. And too many new drugs have a markedly negative benefit-harm balance.

Prescrire's list of Awards for 2005 is remarkably short: no Pilule d'Or, only one drug managed an "honourable mention", and only three received commendations. These poor results reflect the increasing scarcity of new drugs that offer tangible therapeutic improvements for patients. During the 1990s, some 35 to 40% of new drugs represented a therapeutic advance – sometimes ground-breaking, generally modest, but real. By 2004, this proportion had dropped to only 24%, and 30% in 2005. Conversely, the percentage of new drugs with a negative benefit-harm balance has risen considerably. Prescrire ranked 9% of new drugs analysed in 2003 as "not acceptable", 10% in 2004 and 22% in 2005, compared with only 1.5% in 1990 and 1% in 1995. The system producing pharmaceutical innovations has broken down: too many new drugs offer patients no therapeutic benefits, but instead represent a step backwards. These alarming findings call into question the French and European health authorities, who are not stringent enough in putting public health first. A new drug should offer a proven therapeutic advance in order to be granted a marketing authorisation.

©Prescrire February 2006

Source: "Le palmarès 2005 des médicaments" Rev Prescrire 2005 ; 26 (269) : 85.

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