Rare-Diseases Project Hopes for Diagnostic Tool for All Diseases by 2020

April 5, 2011

Consortium aims for hundreds of new therapies by 2020. Prader-Willi syndrome. Fabry renal disease. Spinocerebellar ataxia. Few people have heard of these and the other ‘rare diseases’, some of which affect only hundreds of patients worldwide. Drug companies searching for the next blockbuster pay them little attention. But the diseases are usually incurable — and there are thousands of them. (Scientific American)