Experts in cancer research and therapy from India and US will assemble at Sree Ramachandra University (SRU) in Chennai on November 13 to deliberate on a novel clinical use of existing drugs approved for one disease, to be used for different indications.

The subject selected for the discussion is ‘what more drugs used for other diseases can be tried for cancer’, mainly to think of drug repurposing for improving radiotherapy of cancer.  

According to sources, this change from approved use of a drug for a particular disease for another indication is called ‘repurposing or repositioning of drugs’ and it becomes part of poly-pharmacology.

Sources from the university informed that complex and intriguing nature of the biology of cancer, limited successful therapeutic options, prohibitive costs of new drug discovery and decline in the number of regulatory approved drugs over the years have encouraged researchers to take drug re-purposing approach in cancer care.  Further boost was given by the success of many non-cancer drugs as anti-cancer therapeutics like 'Pixantrone’.

The Indo-US meeting is sponsored by the Science and Technology Forum in US. The inaugural speech will be made by the Principal Health Secretary of Tamil Nadu, Dr J Radhakrishnan. Experts in cancer research and therapy from leading institutes and research centres in US and India will share their experiences.

University sources said the Medical Centre at the university has established most modern facility in radiotherapy with the commissioning of Image Guided Radiotherapy (Elekta Versa HD System) and High Dose Brachytherapy (Elekta Micorselectron System), with an ambitious research program for improving the management of cancer.