Holiday period news focus

Already an eventful year for the pharmaceutical sector, during the holiday period, 2013 ended with still a significant number of events and some that did not occur.

For example, the usual flurry of US Food and Drug Administration drug approvals failed to materialize; in fact, the FDA approved just 27 new drugs in 2013, down from a bumper 39 in 2012, the highest number since 1997 according to FDA data.

For those of our readers who have not been following the news, here is a brief catch-up on the most important stories, which can all be found on The Pharma Letter website.