Nearly 20 months: a drug that starves a brain tumour's power supply gives patients more time

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive kind of brain tumour, and one group of patients usually gets the least from standard treatment: those whose tumours carry a marker called MGMT-unmethylated, which blunts the main chemotherapy drug. In a mid-stage trial presented in Madrid, a new drug called BPM31510 — designed to disrupt the energy machinery inside cancer cells — was added to standard radiation and chemotherapy for 51 newly diagnosed patients. In that hardest-to-treat group, typical survival reached 19.9 months, against the 12.7 to 15.5 months doctors usually see. The drug was generally well tolerated, and the company is now planning the larger final-stage trial that could lead to approval.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation