When Alexander Masters discovered a breakthrough cancer treatment had been shelved due to lack of funding, he appealed to the public to help raise the cash – and succeeded.
Last September, I wrote an article for the Telegraph’s Saturday magazine about a breakthrough cancer treatment that had been developed in Sweden: a genetically engineered ''cancer-eating’’ virus. The science was impeccable (the work had been done at Uppsala University, one of the leading research institutes in the world); photographs in peer-reviewed journals showed wobbling tumour masses disappearing into pinpricks; lab studies suggested the side effects would be no worse than a mild bout of flu – and yet the researchers were about to discard the new treatment.
The Swedish scientists could not raise enough money to continue their potentially revolutionary work. And yet, the therapy had been specially designed to treat the type of tumour that killed Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs: a neuroendocrine cancer. All the researchers needed was £2 million: less than one per cent of the British tax that Apple didn’t pay last year. But the EU and the Swedish government had no suitable grants for research into this type of cancer, and because the scientists had not patented their discoveries, no pharmaceutical company would finance further work, since without a patent there was no way for the shareholders to make a profit.
Feeling like a dangerously interfering, 46-year-old schoolboy, I’d Skyped the lead researcher, Professor Magnus Essand: ''If I could get a campaign together and raise the cash for you, would you restart work?’’ I asked. ''Are ordinary people allowed to direct advanced medical research like that?’’
''How soon do you need the money?’’