With the World Cup now behind us and Spain crowned the new champion of the soccer world, it is time to get back to business as usual!

The first half of July saw the Office of Generic Drugs issue 28 full approval actions and 3 tentative approvals for a total of 31 approval actions for a lower mid-month total than we have seen in a while. Hopefully, approval actions will pick up in the second half of the month.

Oh, by the way, for those of you that are interesting in the array of metrics reported in the Generic Drugs Program Monthly and Quarterly Activities Report, the format has changed dramatically. It is now called the Generic Drugs Program Monthly and Quarterly Activities Dashboard and, while it provides the same information, it has expanded the presentation of the data into a number of charts and graphs as well as the previously provided dataset, albeit in a different format. The usual dataset is in the form of an Excel file that provides the quantitative data from the old report, but it is certainly not as easy to read or navigate. Comparisons of previous year’s reports will be somewhat more challenging.

Take a look and let me (and maybe OGD) know what you think. My guess is that the report is now more automated, saving staff the time to gather the and format the data, but (at least at first glance), this old dog is not happy with the new presentation of data. Perhaps with time I will get used to it, but I wanted our readers to be informed of the changes so you all can study the new information and presentation format and won’t be as surprised as I was yesterday when I accessed the new format. The new report and dataset can be found here. Just scroll down to the blue tab labeled “Download Monthly and Quarterly Dataset” to see the information previously found in the older Generic Drugs Program Activities Reports. (It is notable that any automation in the process for producing the report that has been done has not yet produced the June data set and we are already 1.5 months after the May reporting period has ended. Just an observation!)