Rare disease patients seek treatment

In a recent article at Time Magazine, they ponder whether or not it is time for Pharma companies to begin treatment for rare diseases. For the most part, many go unresearched due to the small numbers of people affected, which often leaves too few people to undergo clinical trials. An estimated 8% of the US population suffers from a rare disease.

Some professionals, including Dr. Christopher Forrest of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues from the Office of Rare Diseases Research at the National Institutes of Health have issued a call for a rare disease directory that would serve all worldwide. This would allow international collaboration between patients and doctors to find treatments for the diseases.

Do you see this as a part of the future for the Pharma industry?

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What's next for the Pharma industry?

The Atlantic has a very interesting article looking at the future of the Pharma industry. With most of the patents set to expire at the end of next year, many companies are also facing pipelines with few products and low approval rates from the FDA. With the clinical trials being the most expensive parts medical development, in addition to the targets of new drugs being very small portions of the population, many drugs are shelved or are out of financial reach for many of the patients who need to use them.

Pharmaceutical companies are blamed for focusing on marketing at the expense of innovation: they allegedly kill promising compounds because of fears of small markets, then concentrate on “me too” drugs that aren’t really any better than their competition’s. Or they tweak existing drugs in ways that don’t necessarily make the drugs any more effective, but do give companies a new patented drug for which they can charge the Earth.

Read the article here.

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