Daniels C E, Wertheimer A I
Med Care. 1980 Jul;18(7):754-65. doi: 10.1097/00005650-198007000-00005.
This study evaluates the therapeutic significance of those drugs commercially available in foreign countries but not in the United States at the end of 1976. Of 198 drugs reviewed, 14% offered a potential therapeutic advance while 75% appeared to offer little or no advance. Another 10.5% could not be properly evaluated. Division by therapeutic class showed some groups to be disproportionate to the overall percentages. The cardiovascular group had a higher-than-average ratio of drugs that offered major advances, 23%. On the other extreme was the CNS group, for which a review of 37 drugs showed no drugs to represent a major advance. It is concluded that few "breakthrough" drugs in general use in other countries are being kept out of the United States drug market.
