Orphan Drugs - Its Pros and Cons

Diseases are born with man and drugs came into existence since a very early time to remove pain of diseases and to cure them. But at times the drug is not developed into a usable medicine because the costs incurred will not be recovered by the developer. As a result the free market economy is liable to leave some rare diseases as untreated. Such a disease is called orphan disease, the drug as orphan drug, and the sufferer as orphan patient. The objective of this review is to highlight the historical background, classification, lists of orphan drugs along with the recent pharmaceutical development and clinical use.