text_1: Cancer drug 49 times more potent than Cisplatin
text_2: This University of Warwick release promises much more than it should, considering the research was conducted not on humans or even mice but on cell lines in labs. The release headline claims that a new compound called FY26 is “49 times more potent” than an existing chemotherapy, and a subhead says, “Effectiveness shown in tests on ovarian and bowel cancer.” But it’s a bit misleading to claim increased potency for a drug that’s never even been tested in humans, because the compound may not work the same way in humans as it does in a petri dish. The drug certainly faces a very long and uncertain road before it might be approved for use in actual cancer patients — something the release never warned readers about. This is interesting research that’s worth writing about, but the release desperately needed a statement cluing readers in to the very preliminary nature of the study. Millions of people with cancer are hoping for new therapies, and this release could set them up for false hope. The release promises that FY26 could be “cheaper to produce, less harmful to healthy cells than existing treatments and has been shown to be active against cancer cells which have become resistant to platinum-based drugs.” The release does not say that results from lab work will need to be tested for years before the therapy is proven safe and effective.