But the drug would not stay in the body for very long and required continual infusions.  It also affected the patients’ brain causing dizziness, depression, and other side-effects.  Takeda Chemical Industries dropped it.

Efforts to improve the drug were unsuccessful until Benny tried using nanotechnology and attached two polymers to TNP-470 to protect it from stomach acid.

The altered drug, now called lodamin, went straight to tumor cells and suppressed lung cancer and melanoma in mice, without side effects, Benny said.