28th February is Rare Disease Day
On this rare disease day, we wanted to highlight the European Commission’s (EC) success in supporting rare disease projects funded through the framework programmes. EC funding has helped advance the development of many orphan drugs and medicinal products. Rare disease continues to be a priority area for EC research funding. There has been major investment of over €2.4 billion made in FP7 and Horizon 2020 to fund more than 400 research and innovation projects in the area of rare disease, and new funding is becoming available from Horizon Europe.
TIGER targets include rare cancers
Almost 5% of global cancers are caused by HPV. Virus-associated cancers such as HPV are ideal candidates for immunotherapy because of the consistent presence of foreign antigens in comparison to non-viral cancers. Although the TIGER project is not a dedicated rare disease programme, there are a number of rare disease cancers involved that will be targeted by the novel immunotherapies, including anal, vaginal and vulvar cancers, in addition to some more common HPV+ cancers. This has the potential to benefit the rare cancer community.
