Metric: New drug approvals drop to a meager 20 in '05

Even as spending on drug research hit a record $38 billion last year, the FDA approved only 20 new drugs through the course of 2005. That was the second-lowest number of new approvals in the past decade and represents a continuing drought for big pharma companies that has blighted their stock prices and drawn a mountain of critical analysis. There were 36 new drugs approved in 2004. Biopharma experts respond that it still takes 10 years to gain approval for most new drug targets and that we're just now seeing the best prospects identified in the late '90s appearing in late-stage trials. But for companies like Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Johnson & Johnson, which went through the entire year without a single new drug approval, 2005 still marks a low water mark in their record for drug discovery.

- read this report from The New York Times