Dad Pleading for Unapproved Cancer Drug Dies

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/dad-pleading-unapproved-cancer-drug-dies/story?id=21004482

Nick Auden, the 41-year-old Denver man who had been pleading with drug companies for one last chance to beat his terminal cancer, has died.

"He never stopped fighting and never stopped believing he would conquer this absolutely horrendous disease," Auden's wife, Amy Auden, said in a statement following his death on Nov. 22 at home.

Auden, a father of three, was admitted into a clinical trial to get what he called a "wonder drug" to treat his stage 4 melanoma over the summer, but hours later, he suffered a complication and was immediately disqualified from the trial. What's more, the drug companies that make the drug wouldn't allow him to take it on his own. ......

They gathered more than 520,000 Change.org signatures, but the drug companies wouldn't budge. Two drug companies -- Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb -- make versions of the so-called anti-PD-1 drug, which teaches the immune system to attack cancer, but they both declined to provide it to Auden outside a clinical trial. Bristol-Myers Squibb cited safety concerns, and Merck said it just didn't have enough of the drug to give it to him.......more.......

One wonders what 'Safety Concerns' could be relevant for a Terminal Patient?

Poor guy. They should have just let him have it. What did he have to lose?

Oh dear. It's so sad to see people in despair, grasping at any glimmer of hope, and then have that hope denied. Did he die because the drug company excluded him from the drug trial? Probably not.

Drug research is finely tuned science by necessity. Some people will qualify, and some won't. If the research fails at the point of selecting candidates, then it fails entirely. And while we wait for results, people die.

It's a great heart-ache for those with little hope.

"My times are in Your hands."

I am sorry to hear this. When it comes to cancer, any thing that will help heal or even to alleviate the side effects of treatment should not be off limits.