Cancer is a deadly disease that millions in the US are facing and the cure for most of the type of cancers has yet to be discovered. Dr. Sharon Shacham from Israel has been successful in developing the world’s first-ever drug that can help halt the proliferation of cancerous cells. This drug has recently been approved by the FDA and it is all ready to enter the market by this Leukemia Awareness Month. “XPOVIO” is the drug that the scientist from Karyopharm Therapeutics has developed. The company was founded by Shacham so as to advance the search on cancer drugs. He plans to create more milestones as the war on cancer has already begun.

The drug had been given a green card in July for sale right after 10 Years of its development. The US doctors have already started using XPOVIO on their cancer patients. After the trials showed positive results like shrinking of tumors and low side effects, the drug’s approval was further confirmed. The patient’s life expectancy was also found to increase during the treatment. The drug was mainly used to treat myeloma as it is the second-most lethal type of blood cancer. In Israel, around 400–500 people have been found to be affected in a year. The drug is believed to have the potential to treat other types of cancer in the future. Currently, the drug is being tested on cancers like lymphoma, sarcoma, uterine cancer, and brain cancer. Karyopharm has developed a treatment that targets protein which is important for cancer growth.

Just like the treatment can be helpful, scientists from Imperial College London have found that drugs taken by breast cancer patients can generate deadly sleeper cells, which can develop incurable tumors years later. The treatment kills most of the cancer cells but some of the cells are pushed into a dormant state and also help them to spread later.