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Repurposing Drugs To Tackle Cancer (theguardian.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the all-purpose-cleaner dept.

sackvillian writes: Many Slashdotters are aware of the infamous thalidomide birth defect crisis. What might come as a surprise is the incredible success that thalidomide and some analogs have recently found as treatments for cancer, ulcers, lupus, and more. In fact, thanks in part to their success, there's a growing research movement that's attempting to treat cancer with other existing drugs that are commonly used for totally unrelated conditions. Drugs as common as aspirin, which is in the early stages of a clinical trial that will involve over 10,000 cancer patients, are being used. As described in the article written by The Guardian, at least one major international collaboration has taken this approach: The Repurposing Drugs in Oncology (ReDO) project. However, as most of the drugs are long since off-patent, researchers are having to be creative in obtaining funding for their work. Last week, Vice President Joe Biden unveiled a public database for clinical data on cancer that aims to help researchers and doctors better tailor new treatments to individuals.

31 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Outcomes by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    At least 15 years ago someone started a giant, long-term hard outcomes study to track food and drugs for outcomes of cancer and stroke and heart disease. What ever happened to that? The idea being nobody knew if there weren't a few good or bad items in the mass of stuff people take.

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    1. Re:Outcomes by clickety6 · · Score: 1

      He died of cancer... and stroke... and heart disease. Pretty ironic, hey?

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      ----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
    2. Re:Outcomes by cryptizard · · Score: 2

      That seems pretty dangerous. If you start a study with a ton of variables and no concrete hypothesis you end up with a situation like this: https://xkcd.com/882/

  2. success by harvey+the+nerd · · Score: 1

    Maintenance chemo forever We have used at least one drug on the ReDo list for a stage IV cancer diagnosis, along with specific anticancer megavitamins and supplements. In terms of success, we've done far, far better than peers spending several million dollars. Great quality of life, almost no side effects or down time for treatments, much longer life, and saved millions of dollars that we didn't have. Hopefully many of the ReDo drugs will be successful and studied soon.

  3. You know, we'd study it, but... by Overzeetop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "We'd study these things, but nobody is going to get filthy rich off of it so there's no real incentive to spend the money."

    Wait - how much money is spent by the government and NFP cancer foundations on research? And we can't get a share of that to study promising medicines?
    Damn, we really are fucked as a society.

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    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
    1. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by ThosLives · · Score: 1

      I almost wonder if we'd have readily-available cures for polio, measles, etc. if they hadn't already been available in the early 20th century.

      What happened to creating helpful drugs for the purpose of helping people, rather than making money?

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      "There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
    2. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by tomhath · · Score: 1

      ReDO is mostly a European organization. It's also not clear from the linked article that they have a lot of expertise in the field.

    3. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by reboot246 · · Score: 1

      It takes tons of money to research and develop a drug. If a company can't recoup that investment by selling the drug, there's no incentive to develop it in the first place.

      Only the government (you know, the only entity that can print money out of thin air) can invest money with no hope of a return on that investment. Everybody else lives in the real world.

    4. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      Because, drug companies have money and they lobby congress to squelch anything that threatens their profit stream. The supreme court has ruled money is speech. It has also ruled corporations are not only people, but they are endowed with deeply held religious beliefs that must be accommodated by the society. Flesh and blood employees and their access to health care is not important. It is the right of the nameless faceless soulless corporation to claim "deeply held religious belief" to shirk its responsibilities is sacrosanct!. Yes we are in this deep a mess.

      But, don't blame SCOTUS, don't you blame the congress critters and the governors and the president, and the talk radio and fake news tv.

      We have to blame ourselves. We do not turn up to vote. We are not keeping us informed. The voter turn out is 15% for local elections and primaries, 30% for off year elections, and 60% for presential elections, Let it reach 60% for local and primaries, 75% for off year and 85% for presidential elections, ALL the problems will go away. We will get good governance and common sense laws and the society will prosper.

      We Americans have fought company towns and coal barons and railroad robber barons before, we can fight these venal politician-lobbying-corporations nexus too.

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      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    5. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by dave420 · · Score: 2

      America has the healthcare system it deserves, it seems. If "politics as team sport" is more important than "functioning government", this is the sort of crap that will plague the US for generations. If a demonstrably good idea is despised because of which political team suggests it, the system is a failure, and democratic in name only.

    6. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      This is why most vaccine money comes from the government.

    7. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It does not take tons of money to research and develop a drug. It takes a lot of money to take a drug through animal & human trials. The drug (as in, the molecule) is already determined long before any of that money is spent. The cost (risk) element arises purely because most drugs (like 95%) fail to get all the way through human trials. This cost is amortized across the drugs that do work. That has nothing to do with capitalism per se, that's a simple numbers game - it works the same under socialism. "It takes tons of money" is a non-argument if you aim to show that drug discovery *should* be done under capitalism. Government can invest money in this because it does get a return on investment when it cures people, the same as it gets when it educates people. It improves the workforce. It saves money on palliatives. It pays for itself. There is no simply need to "incentivize" private companies to do drug discovery, if you have a decent government program.

      The model of drug research with standard capitalist motivators does not work. It is not fit for purpose. It fails to cure diseases, and the reason it does so is because of the capitalist model it operates within. That, my friend, is the "real world".

    8. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2
      Many disease research charities are founded and partly funded by relatives or the spouse of a victim. They advertise and hold fundraisers to obtain more money; much of the money comes from ordinary people and mid-sized businesses. More money is always useful, but many charities don't urgently need big-money donors.

      No one who truly cares about other people is rich at that level.

      I don't have much good to say about Bill Gates, but some of his charitable contributions are substantial.

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    9. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by ChrisMaple · · Score: 1

      The issue is more complicated than that. Defects in our legal system make liability for harm claimed to be caused by vaccines intolerable. By tying the government into vaccine production, the gov't can cover costs or outright forbid vaccine lawsuits.

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      Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
    10. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by Gilgaron · · Score: 1

      The manufacturers are already shielded from liability via an injury program the govt runs: http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecom... But mostly it is super expensive and the return on investment is low. Customers only need dosed once a decade, generally. The vast majority of vaccine research is paid for via government grant to a private company that has a fledgling product they want to develop or a government agency directly soliciting research on an area it is worried about.

    11. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      Clinical trials are fucking expensive, man. Somewhat less expensive if the drug is already approved for other uses, but you're still talking probably upwards of $100M per drug to show that it works. The NIH budget isn't big, especially if you want them to keep funding basic and translational (not clinical) research at the same time.

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      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    12. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      We don't have a cure for polio; we have vaccines that prevent it. New vaccines are still being developed, and some are even anti-cancer.

      There are lots of people working to create helpful drugs; what the article is about is testing existing drugs to see if they might do other things, and clinical trials are expensive. Talk to Congress and get them to fund the NIH more if you want them to do that.

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      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    13. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1
      Spending money on election advertisements is speech. I fail to see how anyone could disagree with that.

      It has also ruled corporations are not only people

      False. Citizens United merely said that because people individually have freedom of speech, people working together in a group (in this case, a corporation - interesting fact, the ACLU and many unions are nonprofit corporations as well) should also have it. Corporations do not, however, enjoy protections under the Fifth Amendment (self-incrimination in particular).

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      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
    14. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by MrNiceguy_KS · · Score: 1

      Clinical trials are fucking expensive, man. Somewhat less expensive if the drug is already approved for other uses, but you're still talking probably upwards of $100M per drug to show that it works. The NIH budget isn't big, especially if you want them to keep funding basic and translational (not clinical) research at the same time.

      At one point during the early discussions of the TPP trade deal, a thought occured to me: Why don't we have an international agreement for reciprocity in medical treatments? Clinical trials are, as you say, "fucking expensive, man," but they're many times more expensive when you have to go through variations of the same trials over and over for different markets.

      I was recently talking with my father-in-law. He told me about how his mom and sister had both been to Germany for a particular neck surgery that isn't yet approved in the U.S. Seriously? It's not like Germany has some back-woods medical system that treats everything with leeches and liquor. Can't we have an agreement between the G7 countries where, if a drug goes through clinical trials and get approved in one, they others can just say, "Good enough for me!"?

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      Redundancy is good And also good.
    15. Re:You know, we'd study it, but... by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

      We could, but the FDA and EMA both don't want to cede control; they put slightly different emphasis on safety/efficacy, there's different regulations on how clinical trials must be run, individual data protection, etc. We probably should standardize it to some extent, but nobody wants to change that much.

      There are times, however, where the FDA will look at the trial that approved something in the EU and just say "good enough", but it's on a case by case basis.

      The medical regulatory agency in Japan makes it hard to do that though, since they require anything that's approved in Japan to be tested on people of Japanese heritage, so if you wanted to do a joint Japan/EU approval, for instance, you'd have to find enough Japanese people in the EU, or run the trial in Japan and hope you have a big enough sample size for the EMA.

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      Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
  4. Re:Cancer, like AIDS, is Gods... by Narcocide · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Finding a cure for either will violate His plan for the human race.

    Unless his plan is to test if we're stupid enough to believe that shit.

  5. Re:Thalidomide by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 3, Informative

    Thalidomide is still manufactured because it is now a standard treatment for leprosy.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

  6. Re:Cancer, like AIDS, is Gods... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Finding a cure for either will violate His plan for the human race.

    Unless his plan is to test if we're stupid enough to believe that shit.

    And when you can't find Christians who believe that shit, you can find Greens who do.

  7. Re:Cancer, like AIDS, is Gods... by dave420 · · Score: 1

    We get it. You are incapable of understanding that groups of people don't all act as one and don't all share the exact same opinions and understanding of complicated issues.

  8. BCG Treatment is excellent by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 1

    Speaking of treatments that are awesome, Bacillus Calmette-Guerin therapy is fantastic.
    http://www.cancer.org/cancer/b...

    It's surprising that there are VERY few places where this treatment is performed. The reason often has to do with the fact that it's labor-intensive and there is no surgery involved.

  9. Why is it that by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

    a large percentage of our society can find the money to help pay for the ridiculous incomes enjoyed by major sports figures and their leagues, and movie / music stars and the MAFIAA, but cancer "researchers are having to be creative in obtaining funding for their work" because patent expiration renders that research insufficiently profitable for Big Pharma? It seems to me that, as a society, our values are seriously skewed in favour of paying for bread and circuses, and the latest bit of techno-shiny, instead of things that would give us greater longevity and a better quality of life.

    I'm probably about as guilty as the next person, and am just pointing out something I think everyone should look at.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
    1. Re:Why is it that by tomhath · · Score: 1

      You mixed two things that shouldn't be mixed:

      1) independent cancer researchers are having trouble getting funding
      2) pharmaceutical companies are private businesses

      The blame for #1 does not fall on pharmaceutical companies

  10. Re:Cancer, like AIDS, is Gods... by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Since the ESP machine I use to delve into the individual Green mind is in the shop, I have to rely on the publicly expressed opinions and manifestos of the group.

  11. Big Pharma by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    "We'd study these things, but nobody is going to get filthy rich off of it so there's no real incentive to spend the money."

    Add R&D for new antibiotics to that list.

    While there are a few defenders of the industry on this site, the truth is they aren't in the curing business any more; they're in the maintenance (read addiction) business.

    They are, in the street parlance, Drug Dealers.

  12. Re:Cancer, like AIDS, is Gods... by Anonymous+Cow+Ward · · Score: 1

    So if I find a way to cure cancer, I beat God? Well that's pretty neat.

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    Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
  13. Cancer is a billion-dollar business... by Nunya666 · · Score: 1

    ...which is why there is no incentive to find a cure.

    Dozens of companies make money because of cancer. Even "cancer research" companies make money because of cancer.

    Finding a cure would be like killing their own cash cow. Who in their right mind would do that?