uveal melanoma

Ocumel Canada in the News

As Ocumel Canada continues to support and advocate for patients touched by ocular melanoma (OM), we are happy to see a monumental step forward in the treatment of this disease across Canada. Last week, Health Canada granted a notice of compliance (NOC) for Kimmtrak® (tebentafusp) for the treatment of metastatic ocular melanoma, closely following approvals in the United States, Australia, and the European Union.

Many patients with this rare cancer have been needing to travel from their home provinces coast to coast – to Toronto – for treatment, which is not an ideal situation for any patient, as they need to be close to their home and support system for ease and comfort as they fight this disease. Ocumel Canada is happy to report that in partnership with treating Physicians and Partners we are making progress in this situation and getting patients treated closer to home.

Global News spoke to two patients in this interview, click HERE to watch the recording.

Ocumel Canada and Save Your Skin Foundation applaud Health Canada’s approval of Kimmtrak® (tebentafusp) for the treatment of unresectable or metastatic uveal melanoma in HLA-A*02:01-positive adult patients. We now hope that every province and territory will take swift steps to list this drug on their public formularies in order to make this therapy available to patients across Canada.

We thank all patients and their caregivers who shared their experience and feedback to this process. To learn more about this immunotherapy treatment and the approval, read our full press release by clicking HERE.

To add to all of this great news – we wish to invite all Canadian OM patients or caregivers to join the VISION Registry, an online research database created by our friends at CureOM, Melanoma Research Foundation.

The database will allow researchers to better understand ocular melanoma (OM) as well as the needs and preferences of patients. For example, researchers can look at the socio-demographics, genetics, accompanying conditions, and treatments of patients from around the world and any potential links to OM that might exist.

The research will also look at patients’ experience from onset of symptoms to confirmed diagnosis and how that can be improved.

For the VISION Registry to be successful we need as many patients as possible to securely share their data. There is power in numbers!  Please register and add your information to the registry. We are eager to learn together to advance knowledge and eventually find a cure for OM.

(At this time, the registry is available in English only, but we are working on a French-Canadian translation, stay tuned!)

Click here to learn more and join the Vision Registry: https://melanoma.org/visionregistry/