Non-Profit Drug Company Seeks to Advance Rare Disease Therapies

The high cost of drug development and the small populations for individual rare diseases can make it difficult to attract drug companies to make the investment of time, money, and resources necessary to bring a rare disease drug to market. American MedChem, a non-profit drug company, is hoping to bridge a gap between the lab and the clinic, by using its small molecule expertise to advance potential rare disease therapies to a point where a drug company might seek to license them. We spoke to Robert Selliah, founder, president, and CEO of American MedChem, about its business model, what a non-profit can do that a for-profit pharmaceutical company can’t, and how it is prioritizing the projects it is pursuing.