Smart Kid Explains Orphan Drugs, Pricing and Profits

This is from the Biotech Blog. It is a paper by Nate Hafer, a student participating in the NIH Foundation for Advanced Education in the Science's Tech 366 -- Biotechnology Management course. It's his final paper, entitled "Profitability and Orphans: The Role of Price and Incentives in Four Different Markets".

I think it is worth reading and thinking about in context of predictions by groups like Frost & Sullivan that there will be a large upsurge in interest in the Orphan drug markets and applications.  We also have recent reports that companies like Pfizer and GSK will start up rare disease units & enter domains previously occupied only by companies like Genzyme.

I think some of the economic incentives in the paper help explain why this markets should become more interesting to more players and more competitive.

Posted by Bruce Lehr June 19th 2010.

Comments

[bigredbruce]

Here's a link to an article from in-Pharma Technologist detailing Pfizer's new rare disease unit.
http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/Industry-Drivers/Pfizer-continues-on-rare-disease-path-with-new-R-D-unit?utm_source=RSS_text_news