Three months after their transplant, the patients were weaned off the anti-rejection drug cyclosporine.

BBC: 'Drug-free' transplant hope

By that time, in the mid-nineteen-nineties, anti-rejection drugs like cyclosporine had helped make heart transplants common.

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Some existing medicines, such as the transplant drug cyclosporine, cause so many side effects that doctors are reluctant to use them.

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In the 1980s several trials treated newly diagnosed diabetics with the transplant drug cyclosporine to preserve insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

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Novartis purchased rights to the drug in 1997 hoping to come up with a successor to its old drug cyclosporine.

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SangStat also sells a branded generic version of the transplant drug cyclosporine in partnership with Abbott Laboratories (nyse: ABT - news - people ).

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Thirty-two have already been weaned off cyclosporine one year after transplant, and the rest will also stop taking the drugs once they have reached the anniversary of their operation.

BBC: 'Drug-free' transplant hope

The immune-disease angle surfaced when doctors noticed that cancer patients who also had psoriasis found their skin improved when they took the immune suppressants methotrexate (for cancer) and cyclosporine (for organ transplants).

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But methotrexate and cyclosporine have serious side effects.

FORBES: Skin Deep