TRNDing toward translation

Following two years of funding pilot partnerships, the NIH's Therapeutics for Rare & Neglected Diseases program has announced its first round of competitively awarded projects. The awards to three biotechs and an academic team illustrate the tack NIH is taking to advance a range of small molecules into the clinic.

NIH launched the TRND program in May 2009 as a $24 million project to advance the preclinical development of lead compounds for rare and neglected diseases. A rare disease is defined as affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S. Neglected diseases are not strictly defined, but the NIH describes them on the website for the National Human Genome Research Institute as "conditions that inflict severe health burdens on the world's poorest people."...