ICORD is an International Society for all individuals actively involved in rare diseases and/or orphan drugs, including health care, research, academic, industry, patient organisations, regulatory authorities, health authorities, and public policy professionals.

The mission of ICORD is to improve the welfare of patients with rare diseases and their families world-wide through better knowledge, research, care, information, education and awareness.

One of the main activities of ICORD is the organisation of the ICORD annual meetings, which have been successfully arranged ten times all over the world.

The idea of an international society for rare diseases was born already at the first ICORD conference. The conference was held 2005 in Stockholm, Sweden, with support by Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the US and the Research Directorate General of the European Commission. The formation of the ICORD Society was a process where many different stakeholders met and discussed mission and aims of ICORD during 2006 and 2007.

The second ICORD Conference was held as a one day meeting in conjunction to the EPPOSI Meeting in Madrid, Spain, 26-27 October, 2006. ICORD 2006 was a meeting aimed at identifying important areas for future work and planning of upcoming ICORD conferences.

The ICORD 2007 Conference was an open two-day-meeting in Brussels 14-15 Sept, 2007, held back-to back with the European Commission conference “Rare Diseases Research: Building on Success”. During the conference the ICORD Society was formed.