A WONDER drug, extracted from the seeds of a rare Queensland rainforest shrub, has caused facial tumours on Tasmanian devils to shrink and disappear.

The drug, known as EBC-46, has landed a heavy punch on the devil facial tumour disease’s aggressive tumours, which threaten to drive Tasmanian devils extinct without human intervention.

Supplied by Queensland bio-technology company Qbiotics, the drug was injected into the tumours of four captured devils with advanced disease on their faces, tails or necks.

Within 40 days, the tumours had shrunk and, in some cases, had gone into remission.

But the devils, treated at the Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment’s Launceston laboratories, were not cured.

Qbiotics chief scientific officer Paul Reddell said that by the time tumours became obvious on devils’ faces, the disease had typically spread throughout the animals’ bodies.

Dr Reddell said he could see no way in which the drug could cure devils in the wild but it was a means of increasing the life expectancy of diseased devils in captivity by as much as six months as well as improving quality of life.

He said, significantly, the drug could give diseased females a better chance at giving birth in captivity before succumbing to the disease, which could facilitate the inclusion of important genetic lineages into breeding programs.