A public fund and label pathway to trial generic drugs against cancer
Cheap old drugs such as aspirin, statins, metformin and beta-blockers show hints of cancer benefit but no company will pay for the trials. Create a public fund and a way to update their labels.
Repurposing candidates with plausible mechanisms and observational signals rarely reach definitive trials because generic status removes the commercial incentive; the aspirin adjuvant trials (ADD-ASPIRIN) are a rare exception. The proposal is a dedicated public fund for pragmatic, registry-embedded randomised trials of generics in defined cancer indications, coupled with a regulatory pathway allowing third parties (academic groups, health systems) to obtain label updates, and payer commitments to reimburse on positive results.
- No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs · Old, cheap drugs with anti-cancer signals never get the trials they need because no one profits from the result.
- Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains · The system pays the same for a drug that adds two months as for a cure, so companies race to copy rather than to cure.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaPerioperative beta-blocker plus COX-2 inhibitor to reduce metastasis after surgery
Shares No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer, Colorectal cancer.
- IdeaThree years of indication-specific exclusivity for proving a new cancer use of an old drug
Shares No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains.
- IdeaPayers pre-commit to cover off-label generics when a definitive trial is positive
Shares No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains.
- IdeaPatent-free open-source development of repurposed and off-patent cancer drugs
Shares No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains, Prostate cancer, Colorectal cancer.
- TrialAdd-Aspirin
Shares No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Cancer Research UK, Prostate cancer, HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer.
- IdeaFactorial trials that test several cheap generics at once in the adjuvant setting
Shares No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Cancer Research UK, Colorectal cancer.
- IdeaA $50 million prize for the first off-patent drug proven to extend cancer survival
Shares No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, Incentives reward me-too drugs and marginal gains.
- IdeaCheap perioperative beta-blocker plus anti-inflammatory to blunt surgical stress
Shares No incentive to repurpose cheap drugs, HR-positive / HER2-negative breast cancer, Colorectal cancer.