World health dilemmas: Orphan and rare diseases, orphan drugs and orphan patients

Figure 1 Ethical issues arising from the influence of pharmaceutical companies. A diagram of a theoretical model describing the marketing influence of pharmaceutical companies on various sectors and organisations in relation to new patented drugs and its effect on public spending.

Figure 2 The chemical structure of chelators in clinical use. The chemical structures of the three orphan iron chelating drugs (A-C) which are used for the treatment of iron overload in thalassaemia and two other chelators used in other conditions (D and E): (A) deferoxamine (DF); (B) deferiprone (L1), (C) deferasirox (DFRA), (D) ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) and (E) diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA).