There’s an old adage you’ve likely heard before, maybe even more than once: “There’s strength in numbers.” For professional sports teams, it’s used to rally fans. For companies, it’s meant to promote engagement amongst employees. For the EveryLife Foundation, it’s the cornerstone of everything they represent.
Just over a decade ago, a renowned geneticist named Dr. Emil Kakkis founded the EveryLife Foundation for Rare Diseases, dedicating his life to the development of novel drug treatments. That’s due in large part to the grim statistics surrounding rare diseases. Here’s what you might not know:
An estimated 1 in 10 Americans suffer from a rare disease, making it a public health crisis. On average, rare disease patients wait six years after symptoms present before receiving a proper diagnosis. And, unfortunately, of the 7,000 known rare diseases, 93% still have no FDA-approved therapy.
For Dr. Kakkis, each of those numbers represented an individual, family or caregiver suffering through the unknown. He has been relentless in his pursuit, and thousands of children’s lives have been saved because of his work. One of those children is Ryan Dant.
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