AN IMPROVED version of wonder drug Glivec is showing promise.
Glivec (Gleevec in the US) binds to the rogue protein that is to blame for chronic myeloid leukaemia and one kind of stomach cancer. It is very effective, but if the rogue protein mutates into another form, cancers can become drug-resistant.
The new version, AMN107, binds more tightly to the protein, so it remains effective against a range of variants. It is also less toxic. More than 70 per cent of patients with late-stage CML resistant to Glivec have responded to the new drug, study leader Francis Giles of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, told a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research this week.
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