Recommendations for the design of small population clinical trials.

Background: Orphan drug development faces numerous challenges, including low disease prevalence, patient population heterogeneity, and strong presence of paediatric patient populations. Consequently, clinical trials for orphan drugs are often smaller than those of non-orphan drugs, and they require the development of efficient trial designs relevant to small populations to gain the most information from the available data. The International Rare Diseases Research Consortium (IRDiRC) is aimed at promoting international collaboration and advance rare diseases research worldwide, and has as one of its goals to contribute to 1000 new therapies for rare diseases.

FDA's proactive role in the development of an artificial pancreas for the treatment of diabetes mellitus.

One of the critical path initiatives of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is to accelerate the development and availability of a safe and effective artificial pancreas for the treatment of diabetes mellitus. The FDA has established a multidisciplinary group of scientists and clinicians, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to address the clinical, scientific and regulatory challenges related to this unique medical product.:

Selected Food and Drug Administration review issues for regulation of allogeneic islets of langerhans as somatic cell therapy.

The Food and Drug Administration has seen a significant increase in investigational new drug (IND) applications for the use of allogeneic islets of Langerhans to treat type 1 diabetes mellitus. The current regulatory framework for clinical use of allogeneic islets of Langerhans is described. In addition, expectations and considerations for information to be included in the manufacturing, preclinical, and clinical sections of an IND for allogeneic islets of Langerhans to treat type 1 diabetes mellitus are discussed.