OBJECTIVES: Spending on pharmaceuticals as a proportion of total health care spending is increasing. It is unclear, however, if this increase is translating into increases in QALYs relative to standard care over time. Our objectives were to evaluate incremental QALY gains reported in cost-utility studies published from 2000 through 2010; and to compare the findings for cancer and non-cancer related pharmaceuticals.  METHODS: We used the Tufts Medical Center Cost-Effectiveness Analysis Registry (www.cearegistry.org) to identify cost-utility ratios for pharmaceuticals published from 2000- 2010.  We considered incremental QALY gains, publication year, and source of study funding (drug manufacturer or other), for three sets of analyses: all pharmaceuticals (n=2277); cancer-related pharmaceuticals (n=235); and non-cancer related pharmaceuticals (n=2042). We used multivariate linear regression to evaluate the relationship between incremental QALY gains (dependent variable) with study publication year (independent variable). We regarded p values below the 0.05 level of significance as statistically significant and values between 0.05-0.1 as weakly significant.   RESULTS: Adjusting for source of study funding, in terms of the relationship between incremental QALY gains and study publication year: for all pharmaceuticals, the estimated coefficient for publication year was negative (-0.015; p=0.082); for non-cancer related pharmaceuticals the estimated coefficient for publication year was negative, (-0.022, p=0.017); and, for cancer related pharmaceuticals, the estimated coefficient for publication year was positive (0.069, p=0.001).   CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that, in contrast to the effectiveness of non-cancer related pharmaceuticals; the effectiveness of cancer-related pharmaceuticals show increasing gains over time. That is, incremental QALY gains for cancer-related drugs are increasing.