Zelboraf approved for late stage skin cancer

by Anil Kumar
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved Zelboraf (vemurafenib), a drug to treat patients with late-stage (metastatic) or unresectable (cannot be removed by surgery) melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer. Zelboraf is specifically indicated for the treatment of patients with melanoma whose tumors express a gene mutation called BRAF V600E. The drug has not been studied in patients whose melanoma tests negative for that mutation by an FDA approved diagnostic.

Zelboraf is being approved with a first-of-a-kind test called the cobas 4800 BRAF V600 Mutation Test, a companion diagnostic that will help determine if a patient's melanoma cells have the BRAF V600E mutation.

The BRAF protein is normally involved in regulating cell growth, but is mutated in about half of the patients with late-stage melanomas. Zelboraf is a BRAF inhibitor that is able to block the function of the V600E-mutated BRAF protein.

"This has been an important year for patients with late-stage melanoma. Zelboraf is the second new cancer drug approved that demonstrates an improvement in overall survival," said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the Office of Oncology Drug Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "In March, we approved Yervoy (ipilimumab), another new treatment for late-stage melanoma that also showed patients live longer after receiving the drug."

Zelboraf was reviewed under the FDA's priority review program that provides for an expedited six-month review of drugs that may offer major advances in treatment or that provide a treatment when no adequate therapy exists. Zelboraf and the companion BRAF V600E test are being approved ahead of the drug's Oct. 28, 2011 goal date and the companion diagnostics' Nov. 12, 2011 goal date.

Zelboraf is marketed by South San Francisco based-Genentech, a member of the Roche Group. The cobas 4800 BRAF V600 Mutation Test is manufactured by Roche Molecular Systems in Pleasanton, Calif.

(Anil Kumar -- sub-editor compiled and published Zelboraf approved for late stage skin cancer at HealthNewsTrack on August 20, 2011 sourced from U.S. Food and Drug Administration - http://www.fda.gov/)

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FDA approves Zelboraf and companion diagnostic test for late-stage skin cancer -- Second melanoma drug approved this year that improves overall survival

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