Supplementation of the culture medium with insulin, IGF1 and leptin avoided AKT inhibition by terbinafine plus FMCC in Capan-1 cells (Supplementary Fig. 6e), which is in line with the ability of these proteins to prevent the enhancement of terbinafine’s activity in cancer cells by fasting in terms of cell viability, cholesterol content and in vivo growth (Fig. 3c–g). The gene discussed is INS; the disease is cancer.