Approved Drugs

There were 50 new therapeutics approved by the FDA in 2024, which is the third-largest annual number in the past 30 years with 2018 (59) and 2023 (53) having more. Great overview by Asher Mullard in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (link).

I was most interested in approvals by modality but I think that synthetic peptides of up to 40 amino acids, which are considered small molecules and not biologics, should be listed separately. Incretin analogs (GLP-1R agonists and dual GLP-1R and GIP agonists -tirzepatide [Zepbound, Mounjaro] has 39 amino acids + a fatty acid, that's 225 C, 348 H, 48 N and 68 O atoms!) fall right below the threshold, even though some are partially or even fully manufactured by living cells. They may be classified as "small molecules" from a regulatory perspective but they are not in practice.