Inflammation has a critical role in the tumor progression, free radical damage can worse the status of patients in cancer condition. The anti-cancer agents capable of inhibiting inflammation and scavenging free radicals attract a lot of our interest. Aimed at the discovery of such anti-tumor agent, a novel intercalator, benzyl 1-[4-hydroxy-3-(methoxycarbonyl)-phenyl-9H-pyrido[3,4-b]indole-3-carboxylate (BPIC) was presented. The docking investigation of BPIC and doxorubicin towards the DNA (PDB ID: 1NAB) gave equal score and similar feature. The anti-proliferation assay of 8 cancer cells identified S180 cells had equal sensitivity to BPIC and doxorubicin. The anti-tumor assay defined the efficacy of BPIC been 2 folds higher than that of doxorubicin. At 1μmol/kg of dose BPIC effectively inhibited xylene-induced ear edema and decreased the plasma TNF-α and IL-8 of the mice. BPIC scavenged ∙OH, ∙O2(-) and NO free radicals in a concentration dependent manner and NO free radicals had the highest sensitivity. BPIC could be a novel anti-tumor lead capable of simultaneously inhibiting inflammation and scavenging free radicals.