Case studies in rare disease small molecule discovery and development

[Research advances in pharmacotherapy for rare diseases in children]

There are more than 7 000 rare diseases and approximately 475 million individuals with rare diseases globally, with children accounting for two-thirds of this population. Due to a relatively small patient population and limited financial resources allocated for drug research and development in pharmaceutical enterprises, there are still no drugs approved for the treatment of several thousands of these rare diseases. At present, there are no drugs for 95% of the patients with rare diseases, and consequently, the therapeutic drugs for rare diseases have been designated as orphan drugs. In order to guide pharmaceutical enterprises to strengthen the research and development of orphan drugs, various nations have enacted the acts for rare disease drugs, promoted and simplified the patent application process for orphan drugs, and provided scientific recommendations and guidance for the research and development of orphan drugs. Since there is a relatively high incidence rate of rare diseases in children, this article reviews the latest research on pharmacotherapy for children with rare diseases.

Research advances in treatment methods and drug development for rare diseases

As the incidence of rare diseases increases each year, the total number of rare disease patients worldwide is nearly 400 million. Orphan medications are drugs used to treat rare diseases. Orphan drugs, however, are rare and patients often struggle to utilize them and expensive medications during treatment. Orphan drugs have been the focus of new drug research and development for both domestic and international pharmaceutical companies as a result of the substantial investment being made in the field of rare diseases. Clinical breakthroughs have been made in every field, from traditional antibodies and small molecule drugs to gene therapy, stem cell therapy and small nucleic acid drugs. We here review the therapeutic means of rare diseases and drug development of rare diseases to show the progress of treatment of rare diseases in order to provide a reference for clinical use and new drug development of rare diseases in China.