The Rare Disease Day, which takes place at the end of February each year, is designed to focus global attention on the need for therapies to treat patients suffering from devastating rare diseases. The most recent event represented the 13th year it has been held. Over that period, research and development in the area has come a long way, and there are now 420 companies around the world that are active in developing regenerative medicines and advanced therapies for the treatment of rare diseases, according to a new report released by the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM).

Regulatory decisions affecting biopharma products in development, including: Acacia, Alnylam, Amgen, Ascletis, Biocryst, Biohaven, Biomarin, BMS, Can-Fite, Cortexyme, Debiopharm, Eli Lilly, Enochian, Epizyme, Fibrogen, Forma, Genentech, Genmab, GSK, Heron, Horizon, Incyte, Innocoll, Inovio, Ionis, Janssen, Jazz, Kiadis, Kyowa Kirin, Logicbio, Lysogene, Merck, Mesoblast, Monopar, Nanobiotix, Neurosense, Novan, Novartis, Pharmamar, Phasebio, Protalix, Puma, Revance, Roche, Shionogi, Sirnaomics, Soligenix, Takeda, Trevena, Ultragenyx, United, Y-mabs, Zai Lab, Zogenix.

The importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) has not been lost on drug development companies. Recently, to help accelerate the discovery of therapies to treat COVID-19, several deals have been established to help deploy those tools.

The circuit breakers activated almost immediately when the markets opened this morning as the Dow plummeted, with investors moving into cash and away from equities. Clearly, they were not impressed with the Federal Reserve’s decision to slash its benchmark interest rate to nearly 0% to help combat the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak.