Right now we’d like to take a few moments to...
...tell you all about aspirin
Did you know that aspirin may help treat cancer...
...as well as headaches?
The pain’s gone, so tension’s gone
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 found 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 mebendazole, 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 cost 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 loth 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 checkups
Hi Mel, lovely to see you
Do you want to give me a little bit of an overview?
How have things been since we last spoke to you?
– Great, I’ve had another scan
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 liver was clear...
...I didn’t believe him
I made him turn the computer monitor around and 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 neurone disease and schizophrenia
There are many benefits of repurposing medications
I suppose the main one is in terms of both time and money
Most new medications cost over $2bn...
...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 has saved her life
But for more trials like this to take place...
...governments will need to change the incentives...
...for pharmaceutical companies...
...and solve the patent problem