For those of you wondering what the count really is for orphan drugs under investigation, I looked it up on the US FDA website. In 2007, 18 drugs were given orphan drug status or approval in the USA, according to records reported by the FDA, as of October 4, 2007. While most of the companies listed were American, few were big pharma names that I recognized. This suggests that smaller companies are the ones taking a chance on developing pipelines of products to which they would own exclusive rights for a prolonged period of time, thereby hoping to ensure a significant enough return on their investment to use as further startup financing. Alternatively, I am confident that if I delved a little deeper in my research, I would find that many of those small companies had big pharma sponsers.

Five big names I did recognize were Novo Nordisk, Baxter, Johnson & Johnson, and Genentech Inc. (Novo Nordisk had 2 entries), from the USA, and Cangene from Canada. The only other foreign listing was Topo Target A/S of Denmark.