[aaavl2821]

Yeah making that argument would be beyond the scope of a HN post. I've also never seen a good argument that publicly funding drug research and dev would get us to a better place than today

Those approvals are all for new molecular entities. In 2018 39% of those were first in class, i.e. Drugs with a new or unique mechanism of action. The percentage of first in class drugs approved among all NMEs has been trending upwards. My guess would be that most of the rest are second / third in class, not just "lifecycle management" plays

It's actually much harder to do lifecycle management bs in pharma these days compared to 20 years ago. Yeah you can get patents, some may be enforceable, but insurance companies will not put up with that unless the "new" drug provides a real clinical benefit

http://www.hbmpartners.com/media/docs/industry-reports/Analy...