{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.041223404255319146, 'fraction_numerical': 0.05784574468085106, 'mean_word_length': 5.068548387096774, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 2, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Editorial: Drug development for neglected diseases: a public health challenge

More than 7000 diseases of humans are classified as orphan diseases [Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) 2005]. For this classification, a disease must not exceed a prevalence of 1.1 patients (Australia) to 7.5 patients in 10 000 people (USA). In the European Union, the figure is five patients in 10 000 people (OrphaNet 2006). For small patient populations such as these, drug development is economically difficult. In 1983, the U.S. Congress adopted the first law to foster research and development for drugs for orphan diseases. The U.S. Orphan Drug Act (ODA) contains economic stimuli for the pharmaceutical industry such as market exclusivity or registration fee waivers. Similar legislation followed in Japan (1993), Australia (1998) and in the European Union (2000) (OrphaNet 2006). Judging from the number of orphan drugs marketed after the adoption of these regulations, it proved successful. Between 1983 and 2002, 232 orphan products in the USA received FDA marketing approval, compared with ten products in the 10 years preceding the ODA (Haffner et al. 2002). In the European Union, 22 products received marketing authorization between April 2000 and April 2005, and >260 products were designated as orphan products, relating to >200 rare conditions (EMEA/COMP 2005). The existing incentives, however, may still be insufficient for many firms to launch research for orphan drugs (Anonymous 2005).