A high-powered committee under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is working on how to manage rare diseases, said Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare.
Addressing scientists and researchers at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Technology on Saturday, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said that since the number of people suffering from rare diseases was less, big companies do not manufacture drugs for such diseases and the existing drugs are costly.
“If you buy these drugs from foreign countries, they will cost a bomb,” he said.
He also spoke about how the Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) facility inaugurated at the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology on Saturday, would be of great help in finding the causes of rare genetic diseases. Later, diagnostic kits would be used to test the susceptible population. He added that the Dr. AV Rama Rao Kilo Lab facility at IICT, where drugs were manufactured and open to research from all CSIR institutes and start-ups, was a boon for those suffering from rare diseases.