“Orphan drugs” are medicinal products intended for diagnosis, prevention or treatment of life-threatening or very serious diseases or disorders that are rare.
These drugs are called “orphan” because the pharmaceutical industry has little interest under normal market conditions in developing and marketing products intended for only a small number of patients suffering from very rare conditions.
Times of austerity always affect those who are already most in need and vulnerable. For this reason 2010 may become a year with serious setbacks for Rare Disease patients. Already a number of disappointing news confirm this apprehension: Recently we learned that the compromise on the directive on cross boarder health care will not bring [...]
Being diagnosed with cancer, or experiencing a recurrence, often puts individuals and their families in an emotional roller coaster ride. Moreover, treatment decisions often need to be taken quickly. To make an informed choice between the bad and the ugly, patients desperately seek for quality information. Whilst the political debate around “information to patients” and “advertising” has been going on for years as if a walled garden would still exist, or could still be built around Internet websites, European patients continue to suffer from the lack of access to quality information while the alluring bait of miracle healers, counterfeit online pharmacies and door-to-door advertisers continues to be omnipresent. “Information to Patients” now requires new courage, commitment and real action now – the current EU political momentum on “Information to Patients” is timely and welcome.
Seriously ill patients who have exhausted all treatment options often seek access to investigational drugs by way of government-sanctioned “expanded access programs”. Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented new regulations to clarify and increase patient access to investigational drugs.
However, even with the new rules, this topic is more complex than it may [...]
