KEEPING CANCER FROM TAKING ROOT

摘要

For the past four years, Robert J. Towarnicki has felt a little like a traveling salesman. In 1996, as the new CEO of a tiny drug company with only six months' worth of cash in the bank, Towarnicki found himself going door-to-door trying to interest a big pharmaceutical house in helping to develop his company's anticancer drug. It was not an easy sell. For one thing, Towarnicki's company, Cell Pathways Inc. in Hor-sham, Pa., was testing its treatment in patients suffering from an uncommon form of colon cancer. For another, the drug doesn't kill cancer cells: It aims to prevent precan-cerous cells from turning malignant. Big Pharma's response? "Everybody blew us off," recalls Towarnicki. "They said to us, in effect: 'We treat cancer. We're not interested in cancer prevention.'"