An ARPA-style programme to develop supportive-care drugs nobody else will
A supportive-care ARPA would be a well-funded, milestone-driven agency that develops drugs for nausea, nerve damage, mouth sores, fatigue and brain fog from cancer treatment, which the market has largely ignored.
Supportive-care drug development has stalled: the last major antiemetic class (NK1 antagonists) is over twenty years old, there is no approved preventive for chemotherapy-induced neuropathy, and fatigue and cognitive impairment have no pharmacological standard. The proposal is a dedicated programme (public or philanthropic, ARPA-H style) funding target discovery, repurposing screens and pragmatic trials of supportive-care agents, with pull incentives (advance purchase, priority review vouchers) for approvals.
- Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued · Trials measure how long people live, not how they live. Side-effects are under-reported and under-treated.
- Cachexia, toxicity and the limits of the patient · Patients often die of wasting or cannot tolerate the doses that would work. Treating the patient, not just the tumour, lags far behind.
Pages like this
not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaCatch wasting early with a smart scale and a step counter
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- IdeaTreat cachexia as a disease: GDF-15 blockade plus anabolic and nutrition bundles
Shares Cachexia, toxicity and the limits of the patient, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued.
- IdeaRead muscle loss automatically from scans patients already have
Shares Cachexia, toxicity and the limits of the patient, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued.
- TechnologyScalp cooling
Shares Cachexia, toxicity and the limits of the patient, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued.
- IdeaA dedicated programme for cachexia and treatment toxicity research
Shares Cachexia, toxicity and the limits of the patient, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued.
- IdeaCombine the new anti-wasting antibody with exercise and protein
Shares Cachexia, toxicity and the limits of the patient, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued.
- IdeaDose chemotherapy by muscle mass, not body surface area
Shares Cachexia, toxicity and the limits of the patient, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued.
- InstitutionMultinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer
Shares Cachexia, toxicity and the limits of the patient, Toxicity and quality of life are undervalued.