Data Bytes: FDA approving new drugs at rapid clip in 2020

This week’s two surprise setbacks for therapies under FDA review are unlikely to derail what is shaping up to be one of FDA’s largest annual classes of new molecular entity approvals.

FDA had approved 36 new molecular entities (NMEs) as of Aug. 20, reaching that number much earlier than last year, when the agency didn’t reach 36 approvals until mid-November. This year could even beat 2018, when 58 NMEs were approved, the most in the past five years. Approval No. 36 came in mid-September that year...