• Archives of Pharmacal Research
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2002

Attempts to develop drugs, specific for cancer cells, are dealt here according to the intended cell-target. While many target specific drugs were developed, they reach only moderate successes in clinics for reasons, such as, delivery problem, lack of in vivo efficacy or toxicity. However, recent efforts focusing on the diversity of tyrosine kinases, participating in cell-signal transduction, brought fruit. The first such drug, Givec, approved by the USFDA recently, is used in clinics with great success to threat CML. The drug inhibits tyrosin kinase of bcr-abl, c-abl and v-abl. Work is progressing on other tyrosin kinase inhibitors and on other type of specific cancer cell signal protein inhibitors. These efforts are hoped to yield better cures for cancer in the near future.