Orphan Drugs Compose Majority Of Novel US Approvals For First Time Ever In 2018

Orphan drugs and priority reviews achieved historic highs in CDER's 2018 novel approval class, but share of products with breakthrough therapies took a slide. 

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While the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research's (CDER's) record-setting number of novel product approvals stole many of the end-of-year headlines in 2018, the new class of medications also set a first for orphan drugs.

Of the 59 novel drugs and therapeutic biologics CDER cleared last year, 35 (59%) were orphan products. It is the...

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