The need and opportunity for Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) are enormous. Of the 7,000 human diseases, fewer than 300 are of interest to the biopharmaceutical industry, due to limited prevalence and/or commercial potential. More than 6,000 of these diseases are rare (defined by the Orphan Drug Act as <200,000 U.S. prevalence), and the remainder are neglected because they affect impoverished or disenfranchised populations. Researchers have now defined the genetic basis of more than 2,000 rare diseases and identified potential drug targets for many rare and neglected diseases (RND).
