How a patient advocacy group developed the first proposed draft guidance document for industry for submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Among the challenges confronting patients with rare diseases is a dearth of treatment options. The development of safe and effective new therapies is hampered by challenges associated with conducting clinical trials in small populations. In this article, we describe how the Duchenne muscular dystrophy community–led by Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy–created a proposed draft guidance document for industry for submission to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This unprecedented undertaking involved a broad coalition of more than 80 stakeholders collaborating across nine time zones to produce a document in only 6 months. We hope that other rare disease communities and advocacy organizations can use our experience as a model for developing their own draft guidance documents. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13023-015-0281-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.