HEALTHCARE

Market-Overview: An orphan disease is defined as a disorder that affects fewer than 200,000 people in America annually. This includes diseases as familiar as cystic fibrosis, Lou Gehrig's disease, and Tourette's syndrome, and as unaware as Hamburger disease, Job syndrome, and acromegaly, or "gigantism." Some diseases have patient populations of less than a hundred. Mutually, however, they affect as many as 25 million Americans every year, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and that makes the diseases--and finding treatments for them-a serious public health concern. New rare diseases are revealed every year. Most are hereditary and caused by adjustments or defects in genes (mutations). Others can be developed as a result of environmental and toxic conditions. Genes are pieces of DNA, part of the code that regulates the traits and discrete characteristics of all living things. Each human cell contains around 30,000 genes. Besides impelling featu...