A chance discovery by a student - today hailed as a major breakthrough in treating breast cancer - could earn Bradford University millions of pounds.

An Oxford-based drug company has announced plans to develop a new process to produce the top-selling anti-cancer drug tamoxifen following ground-breaking work by postgraduate student Dr Ioana Popa.

Her techniques are set to be applied to produce a new form of the drug which reduce its side-effects on patients and reduce the costs of production by at least half.

The discovery could open the way for use of the drug to prevent breast cancer developing and could also earn the university millions of pounds in royalties - but it was nearly never made at all.

Not only did Dr Popa make the laboratory discovery by accident but she nearly ran out of money after she arrived in Bradford on an exchange programme from Romania and only stayed thanks to efforts of university staff and by financing herself through part-time work.

Tamoxifen is currently used by patients for up to five years after surgery for breast cancer and has a worldwide market of £500 million.

But it also has a contaminating component which increases by up to three times the risk of developing cervical cancer, compromising its use for preventive purposes amid evidence it could be effective in women at high genetic risk of developing breast cancer.

The new process means it could now be used as a preventive measure bringing it to a major new market and saving lives.

Dr Popa, 27, who now works at the University of North Carolina in America, revealed how she made the discovery after returning from a bank holiday weekend to complete an experiment.

"When I came back I noticed these beautiful crystals and when I analysed them I found they were the pure form," she said.

"At the time I didn't quite realise exactly how important it was."

She discussed it with leading university scientists and it was discovered no-one had used the process to develop the drug.

It was patented by the university and she was later asked to further refine the process by biopharmaceutical company Kymed GB which is now preparing to commercially manufacture the drug.

"It's cheaper and easier to produce and because it's absolutely pure it can be used as a preventive drug," she said.

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