Prognosis

Americans Are Paying Billions to Take Drugs That Don’t Work

Companies are increasingly using fast-track approval processes to get unproven treatments to patients.

The US Food and Drug Administration is allowing drug companies to bring medications to market before completing testing and some of these drugs have later been found to be ineffective.

Photographer: Elva Etienne/Moment/Getty Images

One ALS drug made $400 million in sales for its maker. It doesn’t work. A cancer treatment brought in $500 million. That one turned out to have no effect on survival. A blood cancer medication made nearly $850 million before being withdrawn for two of its uses. That drug had been linked to patient deaths years prior.

All of them were allowed to be sold to Americans because of the US Food and Drug Administration’s drive to get new drugs to patients quickly — sometimes even before they’re done testing.