Great news for patients with BRAF-mutant malignant melanoma: A new combined treatment has been approved.  

Advanced BRAF-mutant melanoma is a serious and deadly type of skin cancer. Nearly half of melanoma patients who are diagnosed with the cancer after it has already spread have the BRAF mutation. Metastatic melanoma is the most life-threatening type of skin cancer and is associated with low survival rates. Approximately half of the estimated 200,000 new cases of melanoma diagnosed worldwide each year have BRAF mutations, a key target in the treatment of metastatic melanoma.

BRAFTOVI^TM (encorafenib) and MEKTOVI®(binimetinib) for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma with a BRAF^V600E or BRAF^V600K mutation were approved by the FDA on June 27, 2018 based on clinical data from the Phase 3 COLUMBUS trial, published in the Lancet Oncology.