Is there a U.S. Drug Lag? The Timing of New Pharmaceutical Approvals in the G-7 Countries and Switzerland

Abstract

To test whether the United States is slow in approving new drugs, the date of approval of 34 important pharmaceuticals approved in the United States between 1970 and 1988 were compared with those of the other G-7 countries plus Switzerland. The drugs studied in the analysis were designated as having been especially important and therapeutically significant at the time of their approval by panels of physicians and pharmacists in the United States and France. Drug lags were measured for each country for each drug by computing the number of months elapsed from the time a drug was first approved by one of the countries in this sample. Although Switzerland was found to approve drugs generally more quickly than other countries, differences between countries tended to be small. The United States was relatively fast in approving the drugs, countering the contention that it suffers from a substantial drug lag.