On Sept. 16, 2009, Brian J. Druker, M.D.,whose research led to the development of Gleevec, the first targeted cancer pill to kill cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue unharmed, was honored with one of the most distinguished awards in biomedical research – the Lasker-DeBakey Award for Clinical Medical Research.

Druker shared the 2009 award with Nichols B. Lydon, Ph.D., formerly of Novartis, and Charles Sawyers, M.D., of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. This award recognizes Druker’s decades-long quest to identify and develop a clinical therapy that targets a molecular abnormality in cancer. Druker and Lydon developed Gleevec, the critical reagents that helped identify imatinib, or Gleevec, as a drug that inhibits cancer cell growth, and were responsible for moving the drug into clinical trials; and Dr. Sawyers determined how to overcome resistance to the drug.