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Two decades of orphan product development

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, incentives of the Orphan Drug Act (ODA), the largest single source of extramural clinical grants at the US Food and Drug Administration, have had a substantial impact on public health. ODA incentives have contributed to the development of many innovative biotechnology products, and as our understanding of the human genome evolves, it is anticipated that pharmacogenomics will result in the identification of more 'orphan diseases'.

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Figure 1: Distribution of orphan products by therapeutic class.

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References

  1. Title 21. United States Code (USC) Section 360ee.

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Authors and Affiliations

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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marlene E. Haffner.

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DATABASES

Cancer.gov

breast cancer

hairy-cell leukaemia

ovarian cancer

Medscape DrugInfo

albuterol

alglucerase

caffeine

clonidine

cysteamine

ganciclovir

pegademase

thalidomide

OMIM

cystic fibrosis

nephropathic cystinosis

severe combined immunodeficiency

FURTHER INFORMATION

ClinicalTrials.gov

Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act

National Organization for Rare Diseases

Orphan Drug Act

US Food and Drug Administration

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Haffner, M., Whitley, J. & Moses, M. Two decades of orphan product development. Nat Rev Drug Discov 1, 821–825 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd919

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd919

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