Diabetes Drug Holds Promise in Combatting Cancer by Angela Mohan on April 15, 2021 at 3:43 PM
In a review article in
Trends in Cancer, the team presented evidence that immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (which enable T cells to attack and kill cancer cells) in combination with phenformin may also be a promising way to repurpose this diabetic drug as an anti-cancer agent.
Metformin was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1995 and has since become the most prescribed drug for diabetes in the United States.
Phenformin was started prescribing for type 2 diabetes in the 1950s but was withdrawn from use in the late 1970s due lactic acidosis.