Racura Oncology CEO Daniel Tillett and Cereno Scientific CEO Sten Sörensen spoke to David Wild for In Vivo’s deep dive into the growing movement to resurrect shelved or abandoned drugs. The story explores how both companies are mining pharma’s “graveyard” of discontinued assets — not as a last resort, but as a strategic shortcut to reach patients faster by repurposing molecules with known safety profiles and overlooked mechanisms.

Tillett describes how Racura revived bisantrene, a decades‑old anticancer drug, by uncovering its ability to stabilize G‑quadruplex DNA structures and suppress MYC, a mechanism that had been missed in earlier development. Sörensen outlines Cereno’s work repurposing a 60‑year‑old epilepsy drug for pulmonary arterial hypertension, leveraging its epigenetic effects to modify disease progression. Together, their programs illustrate a broader shift: biotech innovators are increasingly turning to abandoned compounds as fertile ground for new therapies, provided the biology is strong and the clinical rationale is clear.

Read the full story here.