Bumper crop of new drugs fails to lift big pharma R&D returns

London

SO FAR this year, the US Food and Drug Administration, gatekeeper to the world's biggest drugs market, has approved 41 novel drugs compared with 22 for the whole of 2016.

It is shaping up to be a bumper year for drug approvals, with US officials clearing twice as many novel medicines as in 2016, yet returns on research investment at leading pharmaceutical companies are down.

In fact, projected returns at 12 of the world's top drugmakers have fallen to an eight-year low of only 3.2 per cent, consultancy Deloitte said on Thursday. The disconnect reflects the rising cost of developing new drugs, meagre peak sales expectations for individu…