Objective
Rare diseases, defined as diseases affecting less than 5 out of 10 000 people each, affect 6 to 8% of the European population. For many of these there is presently no treatment. Recent European legislation (Regulation 141/2000 on Orphan Medicinal Products) has created incentives to researchers and companies to develop treatments for rare diseases, the so-called orphan drugs. The proposed international conference on Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs will focus on the opportunities created by various orphan drug legislations. The conference will stimulate international cooperation and translation of scientific research in the rare diseases area, by promoting SME participation and networking activities between private and public partners. Research on rare diseases involves very small patient groups, thus international cooperation is of utmost importance. Mutual benefit would be derived from increased cooperation between academic scientists and the pharmaceutical industry. For SMEs in particular, the orphan drug route can be a way of bringing new products to the market. Furthermore, it is necessary to increase the awareness among policymakers in healthcare and politics, and among the general public, in order to increase political and economical support in this area. This conference will feature presentations by policymakers in the EU and the US, and describe the present situation regarding rare diseases and orphan drugs research. There will also be descriptions of some success stories from both academic investigators and pharmaceutical companies (both large pharma and SMEs). Finally, there will be discussions on funding and cooperation with patient organisations. In addition to an abstract book and a scientific report from this conference, journalists from scientific journals as well as from daily European papers will be invited to cover this conference. This will result in an increased official, professional and public awareness of this major health problem.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- social sciencesmedia and communicationsjournalism
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugs
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringsatellite technology
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Keywords
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
FP6-2003-LIFESCIHEALTH-II
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
SSA - Specific Support ActionCoordinator
STOCKHOLM
Sweden