Patients with advanced skin cancer whose treatment is not working will now have another option to try, but it is not yet routinely available on the NHS and may not be funded by all private medical insurance (PMI) providers.

Ipilimumab, marketed by manufacturer Bristol Myers-Squibb as Yervoy, has been granted a European license, which means that it can be routinely prescribed by doctors in the UK. It has been shown to improve survival, with patients living for around ten months on treatment with Yervoy (either alone or in combination with another drug), compared to six months on the other drug alone.

It has been hailed as a breakthrough because overall survival rates for advanced malignant melanoma are low. Around 40-50% of patients diagnosed with stage three of the disease (which has spread to the lymph nodes) survive for five years, falling to just 5-15% for those diagnosed at stage four (where it has progressed to other organs), for whom the average survival time is just six to nine months. Until now, the standard treatment for these patients has been chemotherapy, with limited options available to those for whom this treatment has not worked or stopped working.

Reference:http://www.hi-mag.com/health-insurance/product-area/pmi/article378168.ece