Diisopropylamine dichloroacetate (DADA)

DADA is the abbreviation the research chemical market uses for diisopropylamine dichloroacetate, the diisopropylamine salt of dichloroacetic acid, CAS 660-27-5. The abbreviation is ambiguous in scientific writing, where DADA also stands for unrelated things, so identity is worth confirming by CAS number or molecular formula rather than by name. The compound itself is old. It has been marketed in Japan for decades as Liverall, where it holds a Japanese Accepted Name, sits in Japanese therapeutic category 3919 as a liver function improving agent and is classified as a third-class over-the-counter drug (KEGG DRUG D01816). It has also been sold under names such as dipromonium and kalodil, and in the supplement trade under the label vitamin B15 or pangamic acid, which is a marketing term rather than a vitamin classification.

Its pharmacology comes from the dichloroacetate half of the salt. Dichloroacetate inhibits pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase, which leaves the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex in its active state, so pyruvate is directed toward acetyl-CoA and the citric acid cycle instead of being reduced to lactate. In a mouse model of severe influenza, DADA was characterized specifically as a pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase 4 inhibitor that restored pyruvate dehydrogenase activity and improved the metabolic disorder and multiorgan failure seen in that model (PMID: 24865588).

Most recent work is oncology and immunology, and all of it is preclinical. DADA increased radiosensitivity in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cells and xenografts by raising mitochondria-derived reactive oxygen species (PMID: 27626688). It outperformed sodium dichloroacetate in a subcutaneous mouse breast tumor transplantation model (PMID: 27582548), showed antitumor activity alone and combined with chemotherapy, radiotherapy or immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer models (PMID: 39267851), and acted synergistically with fenbendazole in A549 cells and in nude mice (PMID: 39477286, PMID: 40799435). A 2026 study reported that DADA drives the same metabolic shift inside CD8 T cells, raising oxidative phosphorylation and mitochondrial fitness, increasing progenitor exhausted T cells in mouse tumors and improving the effect of PD-1 blockade (PMID: 41758776).

The human record is the weak part. The Japanese approval for chronic liver conditions long predates modern trial reporting standards, and no randomized controlled trial of DADA for any indication was found in the indexed literature. That leaves an unusual position: a compound with a genuine national approval, a clear biochemical mechanism and a growing preclinical oncology file, but no modern efficacy or safety trial that can be quoted.

What is sold in capsules on the research chemical market is not the Japanese pharmaceutical product, and no FDA or EMA authorization exists. It is a research-use-only compound in the US market, and the tumor and immunology findings above are mouse and cell line results that have never been tested in people.

Diisopropylamine dichloroacetate (DADA) is available in capsule form.

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