Yet Another Interesting Article About Experimental Cancer Treatments

[billroper]

Via Instapundit, this article about a cheap, off-patent drug that seems to wake up the mitochondria in cancer cells. The awakened mitochondria apparently then look at the cell and say, "Hey, you should die now." And the cell does, so the patient doesn't.

There do appear to be side-effects, but -- so far -- none that look nearly as bad as, say, dying.

Of course, also as usual, we haven't gotten around to human testing yet.

Comments

[rook543.livejournal.com]

Not unless there is a side effect that says "patient may rise from the dead as a brain-hungry zombie to torment devour the living."

That could be considered worse than dying......that and possibly hair-loss

[redsatin.livejournal.com]

It is not so much that the drug isn't patented - it can't be patented. It's _too_ simple - really easy to make, any undergrad (of possibly high schooler) could synthesize the stuff.

Pardon my capitalism, but I an flipping terrified by the concept of patenting chemicals and genomes (which are just glorified chemicals) - this is a perfect example of why. The reason human testing hasn't happened isn't because it is dangerous or wont work - just the opposite. It probably will work and then it will be orders of magnitude cheaper than what they have already. The expensive stuff won't sell, and that is the bottom line - their bottom line. Never mind that whole curing cancer thing.

On the bright side, pharmaceutical companies are not a monopoly. There are other avenues of funding and research (which is just applied funding). And, fundamentally, people don't want to die of cancer.

[jabberwokky.livejournal.com]

Good lhord, that's a simple molecule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetate

It has also undergone clinical trials for other conditions.

[redsatin.livejournal.com]

Allow me to clarify - I am very much a capitalist, however I an flipping terrified by the concept of patenting chemicals and genomes (which are just glorified chemicals) - this is a perfect example of why.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

I certainly hopes this lives up to its promise. There may, however, be some decidedly non-scientific roadblocks. Just prior to seeing your LJ entry, I found a link to this article.

[madfilkentist]

That sounds like a perfect opportunity for a startup. With a small enough company, the income would be significant. But it costs big bucks to take a drug through the approval process, and without a commensurately big payoff in the end to attract investors, the startup may not be able to do this.

[billroper]

Of course, this is exactly the sort of project that should be being funded by the NIH. It's sort of a reverse of the "Problem of the Commons" and similar to the orphan drug situation.

One class of tasks that governments need to take on are those that simple economics won't produce a solution for. And we're looking at one here.

Off Label Use

[hvideo.livejournal.com]

Once a drug is approved for any purpose, there is nothing to prevent doctors from prescribing it for some other purpose. This is called "Off Label" use.

I think that there are a LOT of cancer patients who would ask their doctors to try anything that might work, so we may well see a lot of unofficial human trials long before any official trials happen.

While these unofficial trials will have a lot of variability compared to a well designed clinical trial, there would certainly be a lot of publicity if it was proven effective in even a small number of cases.

But absolutely, this is one where the NIH or other gov't. agencies should step in and run with it.