FDA announced yesterday it has awarded 19 new grants and 2 new contracts totaling more than $38 million in funding over the next 4 years to support clinical trials, natural history studies, and regulatory science tools related to rare diseases. These grants and contracts, which were funded by the FDA’s Orphan Products Grants Program, aim to advance the development of medical products to treat rare diseases. Several awards support the Accelerating Access to Critical Therapies for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Act (ACT for ALS), which recently established the FDA Rare Neurodegenerative Disease Grant Program to promote medical product development for rare neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS.
