An approved drug is a medicinal preparation that has been validated for a therapeutic use by a ruling authority of a government. This process is usually specific by country, unless specified otherwise.

Process by country

United States

In the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, the

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

approves

drugs A drug is any chemical substance other than a nutrient or an essential dietary ingredient, which, when administered to a living organism, produces a biological effect. Consumption of drugs can be via inhalation, injection, smoking, ingestio ...

. Before a drug can be prescribed, it must undergo the FDA's approval process. While a drug can feasibly be used off-label (for non-approved indications), it still is required to be approved for a specific disease or medical condition. Drug companies seeking to sell a drug in the United States must first test it. The company then sends the

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respo ...

Center for Drug Evaluation and Research The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER, pronounced "see'-der") is a division of the Food and Drug Administration (United States), U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that monitors most drugs as defined in the Food, Drug, and Cosmet ...

(CDER) evidence from these tests to prove the drug is safe and effective for its intended use. A fee is required to make such FDA submission. For financial year 2020, this fee was: for an application requiring clinical data ($2,942,965) and for an application not requiring clinical data ($1,471,483). A team of CDER physicians, statisticians, chemists, pharmacologists, and other scientists reviews the company's data and proposed labeling. If this independent and unbiased review establishes that a drug's health benefits outweigh its known risks, the drug is approved for sale. The center doesn't actually test drugs itself, although it does conduct limited research in the areas of drug quality, safety, and effectiveness standards. As of the end of 2013, the FDA and its predecessors had approved 1,452 drugs, though not all are still available, and some have been withdrawn for safety reasons.How Many Drugs has FDA Approved in its Entire History? New Paper Explains
/ref> Accounting for subsequent corporate acquisitions, these approvals were earned by approximately 100 different organizations.

European Union

In the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, it is the

European Medicines Agency The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) in charge of the evaluation and supervision of pharmaceutical products. Prior to 2004, it was known as the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products ...

(EMA) that evaluates medicinal products.

Japan

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, the agency regulating medicinal products is Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA).

Approval

On average, only one in every 5,000 compounds that makes it through lead development to the stage of

preclinical development In drug development, preclinical development (also termed preclinical studies or nonclinical studies) is a stage of research that begins before clinical trials (testing in humans) and during which important feasibility, iterative testing and dr ...

becomes an approved drug. Only 10% of all drugs started in human

clinical trials Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human subject research, human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel v ...

become an approved drug.

References

{{reflist

External links

ClinicalTrials.gov
from US

National Library of Medicine The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), operated by the United States federal government, is the world's largest medical library. Located in Bethesda, Maryland, the NLM is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. I ...

ICH WebsiteFDA WebsiteSimple Steps for Using Medications Safely by FDA
Clinical research Drug development