Marine Natural Products and Related Compounds as Anticancer Agents: an Overview of their Clinical Status

Abstract

Marine ecosystems constitute a huge reservoir of biologically active secondary metabolites. Consequently during the last past few decades, several marine-derived molecules have been approved for anticancer treatment or are under clinical trials. This review reports the present state of the art of the sixteen molecules approved or currently on the clinical pipeline for anticancer chemotherapy. The molecules are classified according to their current status in the phase (approved / phase IV / phase III / phase II / phase I) and data are updated to April 2012.