As the Food and Drug Administration attempts to foster more competition in the prescription drug market, the agency appears to be making good on one key effort — approving more generics.
In fiscal year 2017, which ended Sept. 30, the agency approved a record number of applications — 763 in all. That beat the previous high of 651 in fiscal year 2016, and worked out to a monthly average of 63 approvals.
“Holy Cow!” wrote Robert Pollock, a former acting deputy director of the FDA Office of Generic Drugs, who now works at Lachman Consultants and advises drug makers, in a blog post.
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