It’s called “Molecular targeted therapy”. These are the type of drugs specially made and designed to target and kill a specific type of cancer. As we all know chemotherapy is the most common treatment option nowadays to kill cancer cells and prolong life. Sometimes its also used as a curative therapy in the early stages of cancer. But while using chemotherapy which is given to kill cancer cells, some of the non-cancerous cells are also killed leading to side effects like hair loss, etc.
The drug leading its way as molecular targeted therapy is Glivec also known as STI571. It is used against rare leukemia.
So these drugs act by first identifying the cancer cells and then targeting specific molecules of the cancer cells. So it by itself restricts its own usage and can be used in very specific cases at present.
A case study that appears in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine on the clinical outcome of one GIST patient in Finland treated with STI571 showed a significant reduction in the size of the patient’s tumor.
Cancer treatment in South Korea
Companies in Korea takes a step closer in developing home grown CAR T-Cell therapy
Due to high costs, treatments developed by multinational pharmaceutical corporations are difficult for Korean patients to access. As a result, Korean businesses have created and localised CAR-T treatments in an effort to address these issues. Many businesses have either begun developing CAR-T therapies or declared their intention to do so, including Curocell, Abclon, GC Cell, Ticaros, Helixmith, Toolgen, Cllengene, Eutilex, and Vaxcell Bio.
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May 3, 2023
