One and a half years ago, BioWare finally revealed that we are getting a new Mass Effect, generally referred to as Mass Effect 4 (even though it has no title yet), with others calling it Mass Effect 5 treating Mass Effect: Andromeda like the fourth game.
Anyway, it seems like it might not only be a distant dream anymore, as BioWare has now confirmed that it has left the pre-production and entered early development:
"There's also the next game in the Mass Effect universe, which is now early in development. It's going to be a while before we can talk about it in more detail, but we can't wait to show you what we're working on!"
While pre-production mostly is planning, the production phase means the start of creating some actual gameplay. A reasonable guess is that it's still at least two years off, but at this point, we're just glad to hear that Mass Effect is moving forward and does not seem to be stuck in development hell.