Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8056

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Editors.
No patent? No cancer drug development
New Scientist 2007 Jan 20; (2587):
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19325873.000-editorial-no-patent-no-cancer-drug-development.html

Abstract:

There’s a drug out there with enormous potential, but no backers
SOME new cancer drugs emerge through better understanding of how the disease develops. Others work in ways we do not understand, and so give us fresh insight. It is rare to find a drug that sweeps away decades of assumptions and reveals a radical approach to treating all forms of the disease.

The drug is a simple, small molecule called dichloroacetate (DCA). Research in Canada led by Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta has shown that it has promising anti-cancer properties. That’s not all. The drug’s mode of action is also generating excitement.

In 1930, biochemist Otto Warburg proposed that cells turn cancerous by changing the way they generate energy. Normally, cells rely on specialised organelles called mitochondria to supply their energy. Cancer cells switch to a process called glycolysis, which takes place in the body of the cell. It is an inefficient process, used by many bacteria – …