2015 update : drugs on the horizon / Mark S. Johnson

The FDA has approved 37 new drugs and biologics as of November 2014. Some of the notable approvals include programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) blocking antibody for advanced melanoma (pembrolizumab) and kinase inhibitors for various cancer types (idelalisib, ceritinib); several diabetes mellitus drugs, including a newer class of drugs called sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (empagliflozin, dapagliflozin); antibiotics with unique dosing frequencies and/or schedules (dalbavancin, oritavandn, tedizolid); and several sublingual immunotherapies for allergic rhinitis (grass pollen allergen extract, ragweed pollen allergen extract). This article highlights significant drugs on the horizon in the US for 2015. It includes drugs that are unique based on mechanism of action or other properties when compared with drugs already on the US market for a particular disease state, are farthest along in phase III clinical trials as of November 2014, and/or were very recently FDA approved as of the publication of this article.

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