Could there be a Gleevec for brain cancer?

10 February 2015

The drug Gleevec (imatinib mesylate) is well known not only for its effectiveness against chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, but also for the story behinds its development.

The drug, which is marketed by Swiss pharma giant Novartis (NOVN: VX), was specifically designed to target an abnormal molecule - a fusion of two normal cell proteins - that fueled a tumor's growth.

A similar drug might be able to tame some brain cancers, new research from Columbia University Medical Center has shown, reports EurekAlert. A team led by Antonio Iavarone, professor of neurology and of pathology and cell biology, Institute for Cancer Genetics, previously discovered that a fusion of two proteins (present only in cancer cells and different from the two in CML) drives some cases of glioma, a common form of brain cancer.

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