AZ-960 is a novel inhibitor of janus-associated kinases (JAKs) that exhibits a potent inhibition against janus kinase 2 (JAK2) with the value of inhibition constant of Ki of 0.45 nmol/L. It also exhibits a lesser inhibitory effects against other JAKs family members, including JAK1, JAK3 and TYK2 as well as other kinases, including TrkA, Aurora A and FAK, with 50% inhibition concentration IC50 of around 0.1 umol/L. In recent studies, AZ-960 demonstrates potential anti-cancer activity against adult T-cell leukemia (ATL), an aggressive malignancy of CD4+ T lymphocytes, by effectively inducing growth arrest and apoptosis in human T-cell lumphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infected T cells. AZ-960 potently inhibited the clonogenic growth and induced apoptosis of freshly isolated AML cells from patients in association with cleavage of caspase 3 and downregulation of anti-apoptotic Bcl-xL proteins.