Cheap Drug Kills Cancer. Tough.

Really. A cheap, safe drug that kills almost all cancers is available. Better yet, the drug—a simple, small molecule called dichloroacetate (DCA)—offers a radical new approach to treating all forms of disease. But you may never be able to get it because, well...it's a simple, small molecule. No drug company is willing to fund costly trials because it's an old drug that's not patentable, so they can't make money from it.



Normal cells rely on specialized organelles called mitocondria to supply their energy. Cancer cells switch to a process called glycolosis which takes places in the body of the cell. It's an inefficient process used by baceteria, and even marathon runners, when oxygen is in short supply.

Way back in 1930, biochemist Otto Warburg discovered this process—now known as the Warburg Effect—but until recently it was considered an effect of cancer not a cause. But a University of Alberta researcher, Evangelos Michaelakis, found that DCA caused cancer cells to die and tumors to shrink with no known side effects.

Hopefully a partnership between governments, charities and commercial firms will find a way to produce the first apparently real cure for cancer.

TH