A combination of drugs, including aspirin and statins, are being tested to treat cancer and other illnesses. There is mounting clinical evidence that the “repurposing” of existing drugs could offer effective new treatments.
Like mama tell you all about aspirin did you know that aspirin may help treat cancer as well as headaches pains gone so tensions got it’s not the only drug being used to treat an illness that it wasn’t originally intended for but for some people using old drugs for new treatments or repurposing can be the difference between life and death i still can’t find the
Appropriate words to describe how horrible it is to have to tell your own parents that you’ll be dead before them melanie kennedy mother of two young boys was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 it soon spread to her liver she was given five years to live if you have an incurable cancer you want to explore every option nobody wants to leave their children early and
Nobody wants to die young determined to see her children grow up she began to search for experimental treatments to help combat the disease i did a lot of research into what else was out there because i wanted to outlive the five years i looked into quite a few different options which is how i find out about repurposed drugs through a private health clinic melanie
Began a course of treatment using repurposed drugs while continuing conventional chemotherapy with the nhs the clinic recommended she take an antibiotic called doxycycline metformin usually used to treat type 2 diabetes a statin or cholesterol-lowering drug and the bender saw a worming agent all these drugs were designed for other purposes but may have anti-cancer
Properties in simple terms repurposing drugs is taking an existing drug that has been licensed for a particular therapeutic indication or a medical condition and seeking to use it in a different clinical setting a very good example is that of aspirin which actually was initially used as a painkiller when it was first licensed nowadays we predominantly use it as a
Blood thinner but actually there are clinical trials in progress looking at its role in an anti-cancer setting so why aren’t more drugs repurposed when a new drug is brought to market it is protected by a patent giving the company that developed it exclusive rights to sell it this stops copycat drugs being sold by competitors allowing the developer to make a profit
But many existing drugs that could be repurposed are no longer covered by patents so companies have less incentive to pay the costs of testing them for new conditions and there’s another stumbling block doctors are reluctant to prescribe a drug to treat an illness that it wasn’t designed for we’re very loathe to use medications outside of the particular reasons
That they’re licensed for use and that’s because if there are any issues when patients then take those drugs the doctor is ultimately responsible to make sure melanie isn’t having problems with the experimental drugs she must have regular check-ups hi mel lovely to see you wanna just give me a little bit of an overview how have things been since we we lost bochy
I’ve had another scam after a two-year course of chemotherapy along with repurposed drugs her scans are showing no new evidence of disease when i got the news that my never was cleared i wouldn’t believe him i made him turn the computer monitor and then i read it for myself doctors can’t say with certainty that her dramatic improvement was caused by the repurposed
Drugs for that the trial she’s part of must be completed but there’s a lot of clinical evidence to suggest that there’s a huge untapped medicine-cabinet of generic drugs that could help treat cancer and many other conditions including motor neuron disease and schizophrenia there are many benefits of repurposing medications i suppose that the main one is in terms
Of both time and money most new medications cost over two billion dollars to bring through the whole clinical trial process and actually license them for use in clinical practice that takes a long time and is expensive for drug companies and for the nhs drug repurposing is cheaper than developing new medicines because the drug has already been tested for safety
Which itself is hugely expensive melanie believes this trial for saved her life but four more trials like this to take place governments will need to change the incentives pharmaceutical companies and solve the patent problem
Transcribed from video
This could change the way cancer is treated By The Economist