One of the fundamental responsibilities of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to approve effective medicines for people who need them, while upholding high standards for safety. That mission also demands that the FDA work efficiently and not delay approval of life-saving medical advances. Today, the FDA is reviewing applications for approval of new medicines faster than ever, and that’s a welcome change from the status quo 25 years ago. In the era from 1962 (immediately following the thalidomide recall) to the early 1990s, FDA review times for a New Drug Application (NDA) or Biologic License Agreement (BLA) were often measured in years rather than months. In 1993, the standard review time (from NDA or BLA submission to decision) for a new molecular or biologic entity (parlance for a drug not previously approved for any other use) was about 28 months,1 and in some cases, approvals were delayed for many years.
