1990 Annual Report

THE FDA'S RESOURCES
Budget

Millions of
1979 $

400
300
200
100
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990
Full-time positions,
Employees in thousands
10
8
6
4
2
1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
Source: The New York Times/Dec. 4, 1989
Food and Drug Administration

There were three FDA Commissioners during the 1980s-Jere E Goyan, Dr Arthur Hull Hayes,
Jr, and Dr Frank E. Young Twenty-three laws were passed that affected the agency whereas
the number of staffers declined from 8,100 in 1980 to 7,500 by the end of last year
The industry's relationship with the FDA improved considerably during the 1980s. What had
been a largely adversarial relationship has become a more cooperative one in which industry and the
agency try to work together to solve common problems. Industry worked hard during the 1980s for
increased appropriations for FDA, and the FDA now seems to recognize-which AIDS patients and other
patient groups helped to dramatize-that it has
as much responsibility to ensure the timely ap- MEAN APPROVAL TIMES FOR NEW DRUGS
Mean Approval
proval of safe and effective new medicines as it Time (Months)
does to prevent the marketing of unsafe ones. 48
39.1
Despite the FDA's determination to ex- 34.1
pedite the approval of new drugs, however, little 31.2 28.8 28.5 31.9 32.4 31.3 32.5 36
discernible progress was made during the past 10
years. Sixty-four new drugs were approved in the 24
last three years of the decade compared to 67 in
the first three years. The average approval time12
for the New Molecular Entities approved in the last
three years of the decade was 32 months com- 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989
pared to 31.5 months for the first three years. And Source U.S. Food and Drug Administration

6