Drugs that can be used in diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of rare diseases which can have chronic results and cause permanent physical disabilities, but have a smaller market share then other treating drugs in the sector are called “orphan drugs”. The reason for this can be exampled with their use for a minority of diseases in the society.
Due to these diseases addressing a very limited patient population and their research and development being long and costly, it can be said that drug manufacturers avoid the production of this research and development field. Because the cost of research and development activities required for these drugs will have high cost after they are offered to the market, it is hard for the ones that offer the drugs to fully regain their investments.