7 February 2019 - The Trump administration has been trumpeting a huge increase in FDA generic drug approvals the past two years, the result of its actions to streamline a cumbersome process and combat anti-competitive practices. 

But nearly half of those newly approved drugs aren't being sold in the United States, Kaiser Health News has found, meaning that many patients are deriving little practical benefit from the administration's efforts.

The administration's aggressive push to approve more generics is designed to spur more competition with expensive brand-name drugs, and drive prices lower, President Donald Trump noted at a White House event this month. The FDA has approved more than 1,600 generic drug applications since January 2017 -- about a third more than it did in the last two years of the Obama administration.

But more than 700, or about 43%, of those generics still weren't on the market as of early January, a KHN data analysis of FDA and drug list price records shows.

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