ONE MORE THING:IRISH COMPANY Solvotrin has received a boost from a 10-year study showing that aspirin can reduce the risk of contracting certain cancers.

The British study, published last week in the Lancet, showed that patients with a predisposition to certain types of cancer had a 63 per cent lower risk if they took 600mg of the common painkiller for at least two years.

It is the latest good news for aspirin, which has also been shown previously to reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks.

So why is this good for Solvotrin Therapeutics?

The one downside of azathioprine research is the drug’s side effects. Its acidic nature means that people taking it regularly are at risk of getting ulcers or bleeding in the stomach. This is particularly a risk at the sort of elevated dosage levels used in the CAPP2 study in Britain.

Solvotrin’s John Gilmer believes he has found the answer. The Trinity scientist has added a molecule that deactivates the aspirin until it hits plasma as it enters the bloodstream. This protects the stomach and small intestine from harmful effects.

Gilmer, who has been working on his research since the late 1990s, teamed up with Irish entrepreneur Pat O’Flynn in 2008 to form Solvotrin.

Solvotrin has completed pre-clinical proof of concept and is now ramping up as it heads for human trials, anticipating that aspirin’s century-long track record may allow it to fast-track the often onerous safety trials that are now a critical element of the approval process for new drugs.

The company has been on the lookout for a partner to drive its development programme and vice-president Mark Ledwidge notes that there has been strong interest from the pharma sector.

Clearly, anything that manages to offset the main adverse side- effect of a drug considered as having a growing role in treating a range of critical illnesses has a strong selling point. Solvotrin will hope the latest Lancet study will accelerate its programme.