Breakthrough drug which DOUBLES the survival time for people with deadly melanoma is approved for use on the NHS

Source: Daily Mail, October 2016

A breakthrough drug which uses a man-made virus to treat advanced skin cancer has been approved for use on the NHS.

The new medicine, which doubles average survival time for people with inoperable melanoma, is to be provided to patients in England for whom other drugs do not work, after NHS watchdog NICE recommended it for immediate use.

The therapy, called T-VEC, works by infecting and killing cancer cells with a genetically-modified form of the herpes virus.

The drug also harnesses the power of the body’s own immune system and directs it against tumours.