Drug 'tackles' cancer weight loss

Professor Mike Tisdale said the drug could extend patients' lives

Scientists at Aston University in Birmingham are working on a new drug to treat weight loss experienced by about half of all cancer patients.

Cachexia leaves some patients too weak for conventional therapy and causes a quarter of cancer-related deaths.

Professor Mike Tisdale said his team had found a molecule which caused the condition and an antibody to stop it.

US drug company Halsa Pharmaceuticals is to fund further research aimed at creating a drug for cancer patients.

The university said this followed successful laboratory trials by its team.

Professor Tisdale said a drug would allow patients a "much better quality of life".

"They may even be able to return to work and we hope it would allow further cancer treatments and so extend their life too," he said.

It could take between two and four years for clinical trials in cancer patients to begin.