Lessons from 60 years of pharmaceutical innovation

In an article titled "Lessons from 60 years of pharmaceutical innovation" by Bernard Munos in the Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 8, 959-968 (December 2009) we read:

"... by analysing data on the companies that introduced the 1,200 new drugs that have been approved by the FDA since 1950. This analysis shows that the new-drug output from pharmaceutical companies in this period has essentially been constant, and remains so despite the attempts to increase it. ... the new-drug output is not depressed, but may simply reflect the limitations of the current R&D model."

See also the editorial in the same issue, titled "Escaping the pincer"

I wonder about the results of analogous studies in other research areas; physical science, software, etc.