U.S. drug user fees paid the FDA to speed up its reviews

In the years before 1992 new drug applications sat at the FDA for well over two years while safety and efficacy review capacity lagged behind submissions.

The Prescription Drug User Fee Act, enacted in 1992, shifted part of the cost to the companies submitting applications and bound the FDA to explicit, published review-time goals.

Under PDUFA the agency committed to review 90% of standard applications within 12 months and 90% of priority applications within 6 months, targets tightened over successive reauthorizations.

Fees fund the reviewer; a performance goal binds the timing

User fees let the FDA hire reviewers to match the workload, not a flat congressional appropriation.

A published performance goal made the promised turnaround a measurable commitment the public could check.

The fee was tied to the application a company sent, so those who benefited paid in proportion to what they used.

Priority applications got a faster lane, so truly urgent medicines were not queued behind routine ones.

When a public service is bottlenecked on resources, charging the parties who benefit and tying that money to a measurable service target can fix both at once.

Median NDA and BLA review times fell roughly by half over the program's first reauthorizations, and standard review goals tightened to about 10 months; the user-fee model was later extended to devices, generics and biosimilars.