Getting close folks New Medicines
This is the sixth drug for melanoma the FDA has approved since 2011. Before the new drugs, the standard treatment relied on a chemotherapy that had been in use for decades. Drugmakers’ understanding in recent years of the immune system and gene mutations that can be targeted by medicines has led to the proliferation of melanoma treatments, Richard Pazdur, director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a telephone interview.
Merck & Co. (MRK) won U.S. approval to bring to market the first in a new line of cancer-fighting treatments that use patients’ own immune systems against the disease.
“It’s an exciting time for our field because of our ability to start harnessing our immune system to attack cancers,
