New Treatments

New melanoma drugs

Despite the current lack of effective therapies for metastatic melanoma, scientists have made remarkable progress in unravelling the complex molecular biology of the disease.

This understanding has led to prospective new treatments, some of which look very promising. The most exciting and most advanced of these therapies include vemurafenib (Roche) and GSK2118436 (Glaxo SmithKline), both of which target the BRAF mutation, as well as Yervoy (ipilimumab, Bristol Myers-Squibb), which works to stimulate the body’s own immune response to attack the cancer.

Read more about potential new treatments:

Yervoy      

Vemurafenib  

GSK2118436 (coming soon)  

 Read how new medicines undergo registration and funding in New Zealand

Melanoma vaccines

Melanoma vaccines are a highly experimental type of biological therapy.  The vaccines use natural body substances in order to treat melanoma. Vaccines are designed to try and stimulate that body’s own immune system to fight the melanoma. The immune system does this by producing antibodies which identify melanoma cells (by recognising specific proteins (antigens) found on melanoma cell) and attaching them. 

The vaccines are either made individually with an individual’s own melanoma cells and used to treat just that person or by using lots of different melanoma antigens from lots of different melanomas and treating many people. The vaccine is given in the form of an injection under the skin. The vaccine takes a long time to stimulate the body’s immune system and so has to be given often to begin with. An example of a vaccine course would be injections given twice weekly, then weekly, then twice monthly, then monthly.

Initial high hopes for vaccine treatment have not yet been confirmed by results. Current results show that some people do not respond at all to the vaccine whereas others have a response that lasts for months or years.

If you have further questions about melanoma and its treatment, we encourage you to talk to your own clinical team.