Published: Just now
One of the largest Swedish prizes for medical research goes this year to a discovery that led to drugs against a certain type of lung cancer.
It is the American researcher Kevan Shokat who receives the prize of just over ten million Swedish kronor from the Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Ten years ago, he became the first in the world to succeed in inhibiting a mutated protein. Among other things, the mutation in question gives rise to a severe form of lung cancer that mainly occurs among heavy smokers.
A first lung cancer drug based on Shokat’s discovery was approved in the United States in 2021. Compared to other treatment, it has been shown to provide both improved quality of life and extended survival by an average of one month.
As with other cancer medicines, not all patients respond to the treatment and there are signs that the tumors can develop resistance. But intensive development work is now underway to further improve the first generation drug.
The prize money comes from the Sjöberg Foundation, established after a donation by businessman Bengt Sjöberg, who died of cancer in 2017.