Charged with spurring greater R&D efforts on new drugs for rare diseases, the FDA's newly formed rare disease review group plans to meet today and tomorrow, when it will hear about a host of new ideas on a richer set of research incentives. Earlier this year the FDA and the NIH announced one initiative aimed at encouraging early studies on new therapies for rare diseases, which has been the subject of growing industry interest with the launch of special units devoted to the field at both GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer earlier this year. But BIO and other organizations say that an expanded period of market exclusivity--adding to the special provisions already in place--is needed to spur more work in the field. Report