National Organization for Rare Diseases

Breaking the isolation of rare diseases

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment
Rare disease day

Rare Disease Day in Sacramento, California

How can something that affects 30 million Americans, one in ten people in the US, be called rare? But that’s the case with people who have a rare disease. There are around 7,000 different diseases that are categorized as rare because they affect fewer than 200,000 people. Less than five percent of these diseases have a treatment.

That’s why last Wednesday, in cities across the US, members of the rare disease community gathered to call for more support, more research, and more help for families battling these diseases. Their slogan tells their story, ‘Alone we are rare; Together we are strong.’

At the Rare Disease Day rally in Sacramento, California, I met Kerry Rivas. Kerry’s son Donovan has a life-threatening condition called Shprintzen-Goldberg Syndrome. Talk about rare. There are only 70 documented cases of the syndrome worldwide. Just getting a diagnosis for Donovan took years.

DonovanDonovan suffers from a lot of problems but the most serious affect his heart, lungs and spinal cord. Getting him the care he needs is time consuming and expensive and has forced Kerry and her family to make some big sacrifices. Even so they work hard to try and see that Donovan is able to lead as normal a life as is possible.

While the disease Kerry’s son has is rarer than most, everyone at Rare Disease Day had a similar story, and an equal commitment to doing all they can to be an effective advocate. And their voices are being heard.

To honor the occasion the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was partnering with the National Organization of Rare Diseases (NORD) to hold listening sessions involving patients and FDA medical reviewers.

In a news release Peter L. Saltonstall, President and CEO of NORD, said:

“These listening sessions will provide FDA review division staff with better insight into what is important to patients in managing their diseases and improving their quality of life. It is important for FDA to understand, from the patient perspective, disease burden, management of symptoms, daily impact on quality of life, and patients’ risk tolerance. Patients and caregivers bring a pragmatic, realistic perspective about what they are willing to deal with in terms of potential risks and benefits for new therapies.”

FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said his agency is committed to doing everything possible to help the rare disease community:

“Despite our successes, there are still no treatments for the vast proportion of rare diseases or conditions. FDA is committed to do what we can to stimulate the development of more products by improving the consistency and efficiency of our reviews, streamlining our processes and supporting rare disease research.”

At CIRM we are also committed to doing all we can to help the cause. Many of the diseases we are currently funding in clinical trials are rare diseases like ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, SCID, spinal cord injury and sickle cell disease.

Many pharmaceutical companies are shy about funding research targeting these diseases because the number of patients involved is small, so the chances of recouping their investment or even making a profit is small.

At CIRM we don’t have to worry about those considerations. Our focus is solely on helping those in need. People like Donovan Rivas.

Rare diseases are not so rare

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment
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Brenden Whittaker – cured in a CIRM-funded clinical trial focusing on his rare disease

It seems like a contradiction in terms to say that there are nearly 7,000 diseases, affecting 30 million people, that are considered rare in the US. But the definition of a rare disease is one that affects fewer than 200,000 people and the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center (GARD) has a database that lists every one of them.

Those range from relatively well known conditions such as sickle cell disease and cerebral palsy, to lesser known ones such as attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis (AFAP) – an inherited condition that increases your risk of colon cancer.

Because disease like these are so rare, in the past many individuals with them felt isolated and alone. Thanks to the internet, people are now able to find online support groups where they can get advice on coping strategies, ideas on potential therapies and, just as important, can create a sense of community.

One of the biggest problems facing the rare disease community is a lack of funding for research to develop treatments or cures. Because these diseases affect fewer than 200,000 people most pharmaceutical companies don’t invest large sums of money developing treatments; they simply wouldn’t be able to get a big enough return on their investment. This is not a value judgement. It’s just a business reality.

And that’s where CIRM comes in. We were created, in part, to help those who can’t get help from other sources. This week alone, for example, our governing Board is meeting to vote on funding clinical trials for two rare and deadly diseases – ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Severe Combined Immunodeficiency or SCID. This kind of funding can mean the difference between life and death.

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For proof, you need look no further than Evie Vaccaro, the young girl we feature on the front of our 2016 Annual Report. Evie was born with SCID and faced a bleak future. But UCLA researcher Don Kohn, with some help from CIRM, developed a therapy that cured Evie. This latest clinical trial could help make a similar therapy available to other children with SCID.

But with almost 7,000 rare diseases it’s clear we can’t help everyone. In fact, there are only around 450 FDA-approved therapies for all these conditions. That’s why the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) and groups like them are organizing events around the US on February 28th, which has been designated as Rare Disease Day. The goal is to raise awareness about rare diseases, and to advocate for action to help this community. Here’s a link to Advocacy Events in different states around the US.

Alone, each of these groups is small and easily overlooked. Combined they have a powerful voice, 30 million strong, that demands to be heard.

 

 

Rare Disease Day, a chance to raise awareness and hope.

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

logo-rare-disease-day

Battling a deadly disease like cancer or Alzheimer’s is difficult; but battling a rare and deadly disease is doubly so. At least with common diseases there is a lot of research seeking to develop new treatments. With rare diseases there is often very little research, and so there are fewer options for treatment. Even just getting a diagnosis can be hard because most doctors may never have heard about, let alone seen, a case of a disease that only affects a few thousand individuals.

That’s why the last day of February, every year, has been designated Rare Disease Day.  It’s a time to raise awareness amongst the public, researchers, health  professionals and policy makers about the impact these diseases have on the lives of those affected by them. This means not just the individual with the problem, but their family and friends too.

There are nearly 7,000 diseases in the U.S. that are considered rare, meaning they affect fewer than 200,000 people at any given time.

No numbers no money

The reason why so many of these diseases have so few treatment options is obvious. With diseases that affect large numbers of people a new treatment or cure stands to make the company behind it a lot of money. With diseases that affect very small numbers of people the chances of seeing any return on investment are equally small.

Fortunately at CIRM we don’t have to worry about making a profit, all we are concerned with is accelerating stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs. And in the case of people with rare diseases, those needs are almost invariably unmet.

That’s why over the years we have invested heavily in diseases that are often overlooked because they affect relatively small numbers of people. In fact right now we are funding clinical trials in several of these including sickle cell anemia, retinitis pigmentosa and chronic granulomatous disease. We are also funding work in conditions like Huntington’s disease, ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and SCID or “bubble baby” disease.

Focus on the people

As in everything we do our involvement is not just about funding research – important as that is – it’s also about engaging with the people most affected by these diseases, the patient advocate community. Patient advocates help us in several ways:

  • Collaborating with us and other key stakeholders to try and change the way the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) works. Our goal is to create an easier and faster, but no less safe, method of approving the most promising stem cell therapies for clinical trial. With so few available treatments for rare diseases having a smoother route to a clinical trial will benefit these communities.
  • Spreading the word to researchers and companies about CIRM 2.0, our new, faster and more streamlined funding opportunities to help us move the most promising therapies along as fast as possible. The good news is that this means anyone, anywhere can apply for funding. We don’t care how many people are affected by a disease, we only care about the quality of the proposed research project that could help them.
  • Recruiting Patient Advocates to our Clinical Advisory Panels (CAPs), teams that we assign to each project in a clinical trial to help guide and inform the researchers at every stage of their work. This not only gives each project the best possible chance of succeeding but it also helps the team stay focused on the mission, of saving, and changing, people’s lives.
  • Helping us recruit patients for clinical trials. The inability to recruit and retain enough patients to meet a project’s enrollment requirements is one of the biggest reasons many clinical trials fail. This is particularly problematic for rare diseases. By using Patient Advocates to increase our ability to enroll and retain patients we will increase the likelihood a clinical trial is able to succeed.

Organizing to fight back

There are some great organizations supporting and advocating on behalf of families affected by rare diseases, such as the EveryLife Foundation  and the National Organization for Rare Diseases (NORD).  They are working hard to raise awareness about these diseases, to get funding to do research, and to clear away some of the regulatory hurdles researchers face in being able to move the most promising therapies out of the lab and into clinical trials where they can be tested on people.

For the individuals and families affected by conditions like beta thalassemia and muscular dystrophy – potentially fatal genetic disorders – every day is Rare Disease Day. They live with the reality of these problems every single day. That’s why we are committed to working hard every single day, to find a treatment that can help them and their loved ones.