Cisplatin & Carboplatin

Cisplatin and carboplatin are two of the most widely prescribed anticancer agents. These highly effective drugs were invented when Dr. Barnett Rosenberg and colleagues found that a simple platinum-based compound prevented bacteria from dividing normally. Dr. Rosenberg wondered whether the compound had a similar effect on cancer cells. His tests and subsequent experiments showed that the compound was biologically active. Until this time, inorganic compounds had never been employed successfully as anticancer agents.

Cisplatin was licensed exclusively to the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company in 1977. In 1978, six years after clinical trials exceeded the most optimistic predictions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved cisplatin for use with metastatic testicular or ovarian cancer in combination with other drugs. Cisplatin, which entered the U.S. market as Platinol®, is also an approved therapy for bladder cancer.

Bristol-Myers Squibb licensed carboplatin, a second generation platinum drug with fewer side effects, in 1979. Carboplatin entered the U.S. market as Paraplatin® in 1989 for initial treatment of advanced ovarian cancer in established combination with other approved chemotherapeutic agents.

Inventors

Dr. Barnett Rosenberg, Loretta L. Van Camp, Dr. Thomas Krigas at Michigan State University in East Lansing, and Dr. Michael J. Cleare, Johnson Matthey Research Center, England, and Dr. James D. Hoeschele, Michigan State University (latter two inventors for carboplatin only)