Speaking at an industry conference last week in Boston, Tom Hofstaetter, who heads Wyeth’s business development effort, acknowledged worries over industry pipelines, but says such concerns are misplaced, DrugResearcher reports. The drugs are, in fact, on their way, and he counseled the crowd to be patient.

“The mistake that people often make when they look at this so called productivity issue in the industry is (they forget) the long time lines we are dealing with,” he offered. “It takes 15 years to get an idea to market and so the dearth of new products making it onto the market that we see now is the result of changes in drug discovery approaches made 15 years ago. The pipelines are more diverse and better quality than ever before.”

Well, maybe not everywhere. Just a few days later, his own employer suffered the latest in a string of setbacks - the FDA refused to approve a schizophrenia treatment and dosing of a hepatitis C drug was discontinued in phase two trials over liver worries. This followed two rejections from the FDA for Pristiq for depression or menopausal hot flashes.

Then again, Hofstaetter may be sitting pretty. Such failures only place more pressure on Wyeth to replenish its pipeline even faster, and what better to accomplish this than to strike yet another deal to buy, license or co-develop a few drugs?