Malignant melanoma cases are on the rise in the UK, with about 10,000 individuals diagnosed each year. This specific type of cancer claims 2,300 deaths annually and disproportionately affects young people. In the UK, malignant melanoma is now the second most frequent cancer in those aged 15 to 34 years. Once the cancer is advanced, i.e. once it has spread to other organs, treatment becomes complicated and the life expectancy is short.

The European Commission has licensed a new life-extending drug for adults with advanced inoperable melanoma or whose cancer has spread. Vemurafenib is now available in the UK by Roche under the name of Zelboraf as the first personalized treatment that demonstrated to increase patients’ survival time with a specific BRAF gene mutation.

Vemurafenib, taken as four pills twice daily, has been designed to inhibit the cancer causing form of the BRAF gene, which, according to an ICR study, evidently drives the development of cancer in about 50% of malignant melanomas. A test can establish which patients possess the BRAF V600 predictive biomarker and are suitable for treatment.

Leading researchers for the clinical trial at the Royal Marsden Hospital in the UK, noted that patients who received vemurafenib had an average length of survival of 13.2 months, as compared with 9.6 months for those who underwent standard chemotherapy. The likelihood of patients with BRAF-mutant advanced cancers to respond to vemurafenib was nearly nine times higher (48.4%) than the response to standard chemotherapy (5.5%).

Vemurafenib, together with the antibody treatment ipilimumab, which was launched last year, are the first major therapy advances in three decades for people suffering from advanced melanoma.

Professor Alan Ashworth, Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, states:

“Advanced melanoma is a devastating disease and new treatments are desperately needed, so it’s especially pleasing that patients will now be able to benefit from a drug that we helped develop. The success of vemurafenib demonstrates the importance of our approach to developing personalized medicines for cancer. Understanding the genetic and molecular causes of cancer helps us to create new, targeted therapies that – as this drug shows – can prove extremely effective.”

Chief Executive of The Royal Marsden Cally Palmer says:

“This is an important and significant step forward for the treatment of patients with advanced melanoma. We are delighted that our patients were among the first in the UK to benefit from this clinical trial, led by Dr James Larkin at The Royal Marsden.”

Written By Petra Rattue