Challenges for Small Biopharmaceutical Companies

To the Editor: Moscicki and Tandon (Feb. 2 issue) 1 present the challenges faced by small biopharmaceutical companies, particularly the small number of patients available for clinical trials involving rare diseases. In our opinion, these challenges are relevant across the whole spectrum of diseases, even the common ones. The “-omics” technologies are leading to an ever-better molecular characterization of diseases, taking into account not only clinical characteristics but also genomic and epigenomic ones. For example, for decades colorectal cancer was considered to be a homogeneous entity and was treated as such. However, as colorectal cancer becomes better categorized by its molecular . . .