Several drug approvals were made by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2014, which reached the highest approval rate in 18 years. The drugs were approved by the agency for new treatments for rare diseases and cancers.

Big Pharma, a pharmaceutical company, recovered in 2014 after suffering patent losses two years ago. Its bounce-back is also a reason behind higher number of approvals in 2014. The FDA approved 41 medicines in 2014, 14 more than 2013. In 1996, 53 approvals were made, which is the highest count so far.

Several insurance companies are not much excited about the approvals, since many of the drugs and treatments are for cancer or rare diseases and are predicted to be very costly at the same time.

As per insurance companies, it's not strange for the annual cost per patient to reach about $100,000. And companies like Big Pharma are also believed to make sales of nearly $30 billion each year on new approvals.

About 40% of drugs approved in the United States in 2014 were for rare diseases, indicating the industry's focus on specialized products. Competition is limited in the market of specialized drugs and annual costs are usually more than $100,000 per patient.