The Orphan Drug Act of 1983 is designed to speed up drug availability for patients with what condition?

• A. Common diseases
• B. Rare diseases
• C. Pediatric patients only
• D. Cancer patients only

Answer: (B)

The main idea is that the Orphan Drug Act was created to help bring treatments to people with rare diseases more quickly. Rare diseases affect a small number of people, and without incentives, pharmaceutical companies might not invest in developing drugs for them because the market would be too small to recoup costs. The Act provides incentives like market exclusivity, tax credits for clinical testing, and development assistance to encourage this work. Because of those incentives, the Act targets rare diseases, not common diseases, and it isn’t limited to pediatric patients or to cancer.