Steady growth in orphan drug market predicted despite price pressures

Orphan drug sales globally will grow at more than 11% a year to $262 billion by 2024, according to an EvaluatePharma report.

The intelligence provider’s fifth  Orphan Drug Report nonetheless notes that while there is strong demand for new treatments, the price that orphan drug developers can command for their products could be coming under pressure.

Year-on-year price increases that orphan drugs can command have fallen, the report states, even if the mean cost per patient per year still managed to hit $147,308 in 2017, more than four times the $30,708 mean cost for non-orphan treatments.