06 Mar 2023 | Healthcare | infographics
Reaching out to the untreatable: Tracing the proliferation of R&D for orphan diseases in mainstream drug development
The Orphan Drugs Act in 1983 provided the necessary impetus to develop drugs for rare diseases – defined as medical conditions affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the nation. The benefits came in the form of tax credits, fee waivers, and research grants, which paved the way for an entirely new domain to flourish.
Since one in seven rare diseases is genetic in nature, this stimulus supported the development of cellular and gene therapies, which in itself is a space brewing with potential in 2023. All of this has led to a new era of medicine where orphan drugs have become one of the fastest-growing areas of drug development as the FDA has already approved a record 18 orphan drugs in 2022 alone.
Hence, our teams dived into the increasingly lucrative space of orphan drugs, an area that is predicted to constitute a whopping 20% of global prescription drug sales by 2026.
Here's Jasper Colin's sneak peek into the ongoing Orphan Disease Drug Movement.