Health security

Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Breakthrough skin cancer medicine undergoes clinical testing in Russia

The global fight against cancer has gotten some new firepower. Russia is working to tackle cancer by focusing on biopharmaceuticals with a brand new mechanism other than traditional chemotherapy, the country’s specialists have been testing a breakthrough medicine to treat melanoma for two months already, Rossiyskaya Gazeta writes with reference to Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova. According to the Minister, the medicine has been demonstrating exceptional results even for advanced cancers with metastatic lesions.

A source that is involved in clinical testing told the newspaper that "the new medicine is twice as efficient as conventional therapy." "The majority of patients with metastatic melanoma virtually face a death-warrant as today’s cancer therapy usually uses chemotherapy, which can only retain metastases in 10-20% of cases," company representative said. The new medicine may be widely used for treating cancer by 2018 as clinical tests have been successful so far, he added.