Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs

Orphan drugs ethical issues

Orphan drugs reveal five main ethical issues. The most essential one shows that funding exploration and development in the field of orphan drugs poses a nearly insolvable dilemma. Other issues include the acceptation of non-economic values like compassion and contribution in decision- making related to orphan drugs and rare conditions; the identification of limits to labelling conditions as rare; walls to global, supranational and international cooperation; and last but not least, determining and implementing panels of decision-makers.