"For one dollar" an Indian medicine pill that may be the key to treating cancer

The TATA Institute in Mumbai has developed a treatment pill that can prevent cancer recurrence while reducing the side effects of the treatment by 50%, Economic Times reported.

The new drug "R+Cu" contains oxidizing substances, such as resveratrol and copper, that can produce "oxygen radicals" that resist cancer, as they prevent dead cells from transforming healthy cells into cancer cells, and also restrict the movement of cancer cells in the body (malignant tumor).

The research team said that the drug may be effective in treating pancreatic, lung and mouth cancer, and is expected to cost only 100 rupees ($1.2), i.e. much cheaper than expensive cancer treatments.

In an interview with NDTV, Dr. Rajendra Padvi of Tata Memorial Hospital said, “The side effects have been tested on both mice and humans, but the cancer prevention test was done on mice only. It will take about five years to complete human trials for this. There have been challenges during Research, but it “achieved great success” in the end.

The Tata Memorial Center is among the oldest and largest cancer research facilities in the world, funded by the Indian Atomic Energy Department.

R+Cu is scheduled to hit the market in June or July, after receiving approval from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said last month that India had added 30 new cancer hospitals in the past nine years, and 10 more were in the works. The government also developed 150,000 health centers to help in early detection of cancer among rural residents.

This development came weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country is on the cusp of developing anti-cancer vaccines.

It is noteworthy that India (the most populous country in the world) has some of the highest cancer rates in Asia, and the disease is considered a major cause of concern for the government. The number of cases in the country is expected to rise from 1.46 million in 2022 to 1.57 million in 2025, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research-National Cancer Registry Programme.