Dr Aimee Tharaldson on the Interest in Developing Orphan Drugs

Orphan medications are gaining a lot of focus from manufacturers, Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, senior clinical consultant for emerging therapeutics at Express Scripts, said at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's 27th Annual Meeting & Expo in San Diego, April 7-10.

These drugs treat populations of less than 200,000 patients, but manufacturers are given financial incentives to develop orphan medications and as a result in 2014, 75% of specialt drug approvals were for orphan drugs.

"These medications cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and oftetimes about 30% of orphan medications become blockbuster medications," Dr Tharaldson said.