Orphan Drugs Sound Small but Can Lead to Big Drug Spending

The OIG report is evidence that the Orphan Drug Act is not working as intended. OIG looked at the 20 drugs in Part B and Part D with the highest expenditures and found that 22 of these 40 were orphan drugs. Interestingly, 15 of those 22 orphan drugs also had approved non-orphan indications, making them partial orphan drugs (drugs approved to treat both rare and common diseases).