New Delhi, June 14 -- the treatment that was supposed to save them has triggered an immune overreaction violent enough to land them in intensive care. It is called cytokine release syndrome, and it affects somewhere between 60 and 80 per cent of patients receiving some of the most effective cancer therapies now available. There is, at present, no drug approved anywhere in the world to prevent it.

POLB), has spent three years trying to solve. This week, its lead experimental drug - an oral p38 MAPK inhibitor called POLB 001 - cleared the last bureaucratic hurdle and began recruiting the first patients at its clinical trial site in London, with interim results expected before September.

The trial, named TOPICAL, is enrolling approximately...