5 mln patients suffer from rare diseases in Türkiye

ISTANBUL

Approximately 5 million people suffer from serious illnesses referred to as rare diseases, which are seen in one out of every 2,000 individuals or less, a senior executive from a Turkish pharmaceutical company has stated.

"Due to consanguineous marriages in Türkiye, we could almost describe the country as a haven for rare diseases. The diagnosis of a rare condition is made in one out of every 16 individuals. In Türkiye, there is even a case of a disease that affects only 300 people worldwide. Therefore, domestic drug production is imperative," stated Yunus Sancak, the CEO of Humanis Health Inc., during a conference in Barcelona, Spain.

Pointing out that half of rare disease patients are children, and 30 percent of these children lost their lives before the age of 5, Sancak noted that the primary reason for this high mortality rate is the lack of a definitive cure for most rare diseases.

Due to the absence of treatments capable of completely curing the patient's ailment, doctors, at least, often administer therapies aimed at enhancing the patient's quality of life and reducing their suffering, he added.

Typically, these treatments are discovered as a result of extensive research and development efforts by major pharmaceutical companies.

However, many diseases remain untreated due to the extensive time and cost associated with such research, leading to the absence of treatment options for these conditions.