Cai Wenjun/ Shanghai Daily news

The world's first medicine for treating advanced liver cancer has been approved by China's State Food and Drug Administration.

It has also cooperated with the producer to launch a program to provide the medicine free to needy liver cancer sufferers, a medical conference in Shanghai heard yesterday.

Nexavar, an oral drug developed by Bayer Schering Pharma, is the first approved systemic therapy for terminal liver cancer. It works by inhibiting tumor growth and blocking its blood supply - two important processes that enable cancer growth.