Rare Disease Day (RDD) is observed every year on February 28 (or 29 in leap years)—the rarest day of the year.RDD is a global initiative started in Sweden in 2008 with the purpose of improving the quality of life of patients suffering rare and intractable diseases through better diagnosis and treatment. RDD events have been held nationwide since 2010 to provide opportunities for patients, their families, and others to connect with each other in Japan as well.
Approximately 350 million patients in the world suffer from 5,000-8,000 different types of rare diseases. However, due to the small number of patients with each disease, patients and their families face many challenges when fighting against the disease, such as the struggle to find adequate information, the patients may wait several years for a correct diagnosis, the lack of specialized doctors and researchers, and the difficulty in developing therapeutic medications and treatments.

In order to deepen our understanding of the current state of rare diseases, MEDIPAL HOLDINGS held “Rare Disease Week 2024” as a disease awareness event for employees from February 26 to 29, 2024 at our head office where we exhibited panels about rare diseases.
On February 29, we screened an interview video with children of rare diseases and their families, as well as a French documentary film about depicting children living hard while fighting a rare disease. Many employees gathered at the venue and through this screening shared the feelings of patients suffering from the diseases and reaffirmed our role as a company dealing with rare disease medications.

We would like to continue to work on awareness activities to deepen our understanding of rare diseases so as to we can contribute to improving the quality of life of patients and their families.