Today, the Office of Generic Drugs (OGD) at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its 2021 Annual Report. As noted in the report, 90% of all drugs dispensed in the US are generic. In 2021, there were 776 approved generic drugs through the Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDA) process. Approvals by month are below.
![](https://www.healthcare-economist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/generic_drugs_2021.png)
Out of these 776, 93 were first generic drugs. A list of first generic approvals that the FDA OGD defined as “significant” is listed below.
![](https://www.healthcare-economist.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/generic_drugs_2021_signif.png)
The OGD report is an important reminder “…that the purpose of the pharmaceutical industry is to create a ‘mountain of inexpensive generics‘ to help humanity in perpetuity “