Thalidomide's second life — 1998 / 2006
Banned worldwide in the early 1960s after causing thousands of birth defects, thalidomide returned in 1998 to treat a form of leprosy and in 2006 for multiple myeloma, after researchers understood its anti-angiogenic and immune-modulating actions.
The drug once seen as a public-health disaster became a therapy with tightly managed safety programs.
Established a precedent that a therapy written off for a safety signal can be revived when new data change the risk-benefit calculus.
Zenkuda traveled a similar arc from its 2023 cataract halt to five positive Phase 3 studies, though in the same indication rather than new ones.
