A new compound, called ABT-888, has passed the first stage of clinical examination using a new model for drug development that promises to shorten — by up to six to 12 months — the timeline for taking anticancer drugs from the laboratory to the clinic, according to a team of researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. This result (abstract #3518) was presented June 3, 2007, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago, Ill.