The Use of Social Media in Orphan Drug Development

Social media has transformed how people interact with one another through the Internet, and it has the potential to do the same for orphan drug development. Currently, social media influences the orphan drug development process in the following three ways: assisting the study of orphan diseases, increasing the awareness of orphan disease, and playing a vital role in clinical trials. However, there are some caveats to the utilization of social media, such as the need to protect patient privacy by adequately de-identifying personal health information, assuring consistent quality and representativeness of the data, and preventing the unblinding of patient group assignments. Social media has both potential for improving orphan drug development and pitfalls, but with proper oversight on the part of companies, support and participation of patients and their advocacy groups, and timely guidance from regulatory authorities, the positives outweigh the negatives for this powerful and patient-centric tool.