OBJECTIVES: To evaluate whether medicines were approved for more therapeutic indications in 2016 than they were in 2006. This would suggest a prioritization of multiple indications for one therapy from drug companies.

METHODS: We reviewed European Medicines Agency (EMA) updates for human medicines from 2006 to 2016 in 54 disease conditions (n=753). We selected updates that related to changes in therapeutic indications (n=577). We then controlled for multiple updates of the same medicine by using only the latest update of a medicine (n=378). We evaluated the average number of relevant therapeutic updates in these years. We then counted the number of indications for each of these therapeutic areas, considering indications to be separate when they were in different disease areas.

RESULTS: In 2006, there were 21 updates; in 2016, there were 49 updates; and the average across these years was 34.5 updates. We found that in 2006, the average number of therapeutic indications was 1.75, and in 2016 it was 2.0. Between these years, it varied from 1.3 to 1.72, with a very slight upward trend.

CONCLUSIONS: Based on this data, pharmaceutical companies are not currently prioritizing multi-indication drugs more often than they did in the past. There is the possibility that the newer data, from the last three or four years, should be excluded from this evaluation. Many of these medicines were considered after their initial approval and they may not have had time to gain approval for secondary indications.