NIH Expert Outlines Critical Challenges and Solutions in Rare Disease Clinical Trials
- The Office of Rare Diseases Research (ORDR) at NIH has launched the Global Rare Disease Patient Registry and Data Repository (GRDR) to facilitate research and clinical trials across 6,800+ known rare diseases.
- Patient identification and recruitment remain major challenges in rare disease trials, with affected populations often small and geographically dispersed, requiring new clinical study models.
- The ORDR is implementing solutions through standardized data collection, biospecimen linking, and increased collaboration between patient advocacy groups, researchers, and pharmaceutical companies.