Dearth of new drugs worries pharma sector If there is one industry that should benefit from the "demographic time-bomb", it is healthcare. Consumption of medicines begins in earnest when people reach their 50s, so ageing populations should mean expanding revenues. Yet, despite the benefit of such a strong trailing wind, many of the large pharmaceuticals companies that dominate the healthcare sector are facing their toughest outlook in a decade. | Read Research & development Still no end to the slowdown The pharmaceutical industry worldwide launched only 31 new drugs last year, the lowest number for almost three decades. This continues a long decline from what seems now like a golden age of productivity in the late 1980s, when the industry was launching 50 to 60 drugs a year while spending less than half as much on research and development as it does today. Genomics Technology that gives industry a helping hand Herceptin, the first drug developed from a genetic discovery, had sales of $346.6m last year. Based on the finding that some aggressive breast cancers over-expressed the Her-2-neu gene, it offers hope to women who carry the mutation. Her-2-neu was discovered by cancer researchers in the early 1970s but the use of genomics for drug discovery only started in earnest in 1993.