• Center on Health Equity & Access
  • Clinical
  • Health Care Cost
  • Health Care Delivery
  • Insurance
  • Policy
  • Technology
  • Value-Based Care

Dr Aimee Tharaldson on the Interest in Developing Orphan Drugs

Video

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.

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.

Related Videos
Rakendu Rajendran, MBBS
Rayan Salih, MD, Northeast Georgia Health System
Deepak L. Bhatt, MD, MPH, MBA, FACC, FAHA, FESC, MSCAI, Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital
Varsha Tanguturi, MD, MPH, Mass General Hospital
 Khush Kharidia, MD, UT Southwestern
Alexandra M. Trevino, MD, Northwestern Medicine
Andrew Kuykendall, MD, Moffitt Cancer Center
David J. Maron, MD, FASPC, Stanford University School of Medicine
Karen Vo talks about antibullying campaigns and pediatric patients with derm conditions
Related Content
© 2025 MJH Life Sciences
AJMC®
All rights reserved.