Without this pill, lots of people would be dead

Short Wave

NPR

News, Life Sciences, Daily News, Astronomy, Nature, Science

4.7 • 6.5K Ratings

🗓️ 11 May 2026

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

25 years ago, the FDA approved a pill that would change the way scientists treat cancer … for good. The pill was called Gleevec; it was designed specifically to treat CML, chronic myeloid leukemia, and it was one of the first targeted cancer therapies available. A quarter century after approval, it’s still being prescribed, as are second, third and fourth-generation drugs that followed in its footsteps. What made it so special – and so effective? Pharmaceutical correspondent Sydney Lupkin walks us through the history of the drug, and why it’s continued to change lives for decades.

If you liked this episode, check out our other episodes with Sydney on accelerated drug approvals and the development of GLP-1 pills.

Interested in more stories about medicine and medical treatment? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.6	Hey, shortwavers. Emily Kwong here with NPR Pharmaceuticals correspondent, Sydney Lubkin.
0:10.7	Hello.
0:11.4	Hi, Emily.
0:12.4	So this weekend marked a very important anniversary.
0:16.6	Was it our anniversary?
0:17.7	We have been friends for a long time.
0:19.5	No.
0:20.3	Oh, not our friend anniversary, Emily. The anniversary of a pill that revolutionized cancer care.
0:25.5	Oh, that's way better. Not that I don't love you. What pill?
0:28.9	So the drug is called Glevec. And May 10th marks 25 years since the Food and Drug Administration first approved it.
0:35.6	Okay. So Glevec, why is this pill such a big deal?
0:39.3	Well, it's considered one of the first targeted cancer therapies. And what it really did was make
0:44.9	some cancers that were once fatal, not so fatal anymore. Survivable. Wow, that is a big deal.
0:51.4	Yeah, and I talked about it with this guy in Atlanta. His name is Melman. And he told me that in 1995, he was dealing with some back pain and fatigue, but it wasn't really clear why. Then after an MRI showed what was going on with his bone marrow, he was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, a kind of blood cancer.
1:14.8	He was 37 at the time and had a five-year-old daughter at home.
1:18.2	The doctors told him he had three years to live. Yeah, I was shocked because, you know, that was the first time that I had to face my own mortality.
1:25.7	But, Emily, Mel is actually still here. That is amazing. After being
1:31.1	given only three years to live. So how did that happen? So after his diagnosis in January 1995,
1:38.1	Mel starts doing bone marrow drives, hoping to find a match and get a life-saving bone marrow transplant.
1:43.2	Yeah. But at the time, if you were black, you had such a low chance of finding a match that he knew it was kind of an impossibility.
1:50.8	And I would take my daughter with me.
	...

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