Because it's too soon to tell whether it actually works on cancer in humans. (see also)

Well. Okay.

But, still. You'd think someone in the major media would have covered the story.

Although I have to seriously wonder how much research muscle is going to be put behind testing a drug that no big pharmaceutical company can make billions from.

As Orac points out, there's plenty of government and non-profit research money out there for promising substances: NIH would get their heads handed to them on a Congressional platter if they didn't step up.

On the other hand, it might not get fast-tracked the way ED drugs are....

Yes, I almost came back and left another comment, saying that I'd seen the other references to some kind of Big Pharma Conspiracy and that that wasn't what I was implying. :)

Big Pharma has the (government) money and the access to experts to do any research they want to do. NIH, on the other hand, has to jump through bureaucratic hoops. If this was worth Big Pharma's time, they'd have ten studies halfway to completion by now. But there's no money in it for them, unless they can "discover" that they need to make alterations to the original drug in order to make it work. T(hey could get a patent, then.)

Actually, according to the discussions at Orac's, they could get a patent for a new application of an old drug, or at least they could have before the paper was published and it became common knowledge (it's possible the investigator who published the research did get a patent for this, though it's not known).

And don't underestimate the bureaucratic hoops corporate researchers have to go through....

Yes, but corporate researchers have entire staffs of 'experts' to help them jump those hoops. :)

I have a love/hate relationship with Big Pharma. (Disclosure: I've worked with pharmas in past jobs.) One the one hand, there's no denying the benefits they provide and they give out millions and millions of dollars in free drugs every year, a fact that many people don't know. Most of them offer programs that, if the patient will enroll in a study that allows the corporation to track their health progress and drug side-effects, provides study medication absolutely free to the patient--a godsend for the less-affluent who need expensive meds. The people I've worked with have all been dedicated and truly caring.

On the other hand, Big Pharma is made up of mega-billion-dollar corporations who have the responsibility to try to be ever-more profitable. From that standpoint, a drug that turns cancer into a long-term condition, as long as meds are taken regularly, is much better for the bottom line than a drug that just cures it.

I've never heard anyone in that industry express such a sentiment (my interaction wasn't on the corporate officer level), but it seems fairly obvious, from a business standpoint.