Is it possible that there are, literally, thousands of drugs that are available over-the-counter (OTC) that are available to treat cancer? In a recent study by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers reported that they have systematically analyzed thousands of drug compounds and discovered anti-cancer activity. These surprising findings also revealed possible ways to accelerate the development of new cancer drugs or how existing drugs may be repurposed to treat cancer. The entire study was published in Nature Reviews Cancer (note: a fee may be required to access this article).

According to Dr Steven Corsello, an oncologist at Dana-Farber and founder of the Drug Repurposing Hub, they found nearly 50 non-cancer drugs that killed some cancer cells while leaving others alone. Initially these drugs were marketed to lower cholesterol or reduce inflammation.

He noted that some of the compounds killed cancer cells in unexpected ways but the drug mechanisms were easier to find using a cell-based approach measuring cell-survival instead of a more traditional non-cell-based screening method.

Researchers are continuing to study the repurposing of compounds in more cancer cell lines and to grow the hub to include even more compounds that have been tested in humans. You can visit the hub’s website to learn more about the data scientists have collected from this and ongoing studies. At this time the Hub includes information gathered from over 4,500 different drugs.