Australian Patients With Melanoma To Receive Skin Cancer "Wonder Drug"

A drug produced by Merck Sharp and Dohme will be given for free to Australian cancer patients who are out of treatment options, the International Business Times reports. The drug, MK-3475, has proven to be a more potent treatment than Yervoy, which is the drug most melanoma patients in Australia are currently receiving as treatment for advanced melanoma. More than 1,000 people living in Australia have advanced-stage melanoma.

Professor Grant McArthur from Melbourne’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre said that a significant number of these patients will be eligible to receive the drug for their own melanoma treatments. MK-3475 has been found to have a positive effect on roughly half of all patients who were diagnosed with advanced melanoma. With high doses of the drug, the cancer’s ability to disguise itself is lost, allowing the body’s T cells to attack the melanoma and reduce the size of tumors.

The Australian government’s Therapeutic Goods Administration has approved the limited release of the cancer drug, and the administration has plans to release the drug to a small number of patients with metastatic melanoma each month. In order to qualify to receive the drug, Australian patients’ melanoma has to have spread, and surgery can no longer be an option for treatment.

Patients will be receiving access to the MK-3475 drug thanks to a campaign led in part by the former Lord Mayor of Melbourne and chairman of the Australian Grand Prix, Ron Walker. Walker’s pleas to allow treatment garnered a public response. The cause was also championed by Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Health Minster Peter Dutton.