Background: Since 1995, approval for many new medicinal products has been obtained through a centralized\r\nprocedure in the European Union. In recent years, the use of summary measures of population health has become\r\nwidespread. We investigated whether efforts to develop innovative medicines are focusing on the most relevant\r\nconditions from a global public health perspective.\r\nMethods: We reviewed the information on new medicinal products approved by centralized procedure from 1995\r\nto 2009, information that is available to the public in the European Commission Register of medicinal products and\r\nthe European Public Assessment Reports from the European Medicines Agency. Morbidity and mortality data were\r\nincluded for each disease group, according to the Global Burden of Disease project. We evaluated the association\r\nbetween authorized medicinal products and burden of disease measures based on disability-adjusted life years\r\n(DALYs) in the European Union and worldwide.\r\nResults: We considered 520 marketing authorizations for medicinal products and 338 active ingredients. New\r\nauthorizations were seen to increase over the period analyzed. There was a positive, high correlation between\r\nDALYs and new medicinal product development (r = 0.619, p = 0.005) in the European Union, and a moderate\r\ncorrelation for middle-low-income countries (r = 0.497, p = 0.030) and worldwide (r = 0.490, p = 0.033). The most\r\nneglected conditions at the European level (based on their attributable health losses) were neuropsychiatric\r\ndiseases, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, sense organ conditions, and digestive diseases, while globally,\r\nthey were perinatal conditions, respiratory infections, sense organ conditions, respiratory diseases, and digestive\r\ndiseases.\r\nConclusions: We find that the development of new medicinal products is higher for some diseases than others.\r\nPharmaceutical industry leaders and policymakers are invited to consider the implications of this imbalance by\r\nestablishing work plans that allow for the setting of future priorities from a public health perspective
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