Vtesse, a rare disease drug development company, this week announced that it was initiating a late-stage pivotal trial for its lead experimental therapeutic to treat Niemann-Pick Type C1 disease. The start of the trial for the nine month old company represents a major milestone and suggest its history with the National Institutes of Health and the rare disease drug accelerator Cydan Development may point to new ways of cutting the time and cost of advancing a drug to market. We spoke to Ben Machielse, CEO of Vtesse, about the rapid pace at which the company has been able to move, the role NIH has played, and whether this points to new ways to accelerate the drug development process.