Leukaemia drug hope

PATIENTS with blood cancers have new hope after two trials found a drug pioneered in Australia showed dramatic life-saving benefits.

Research shows when Venetoclax – a drug developed from scientific discoveries made in Melbourne – is combined with standard immunotherapy drugs, it can save more than twice as many patients as chemotherapy.

In one study almost 85 per cent of 389 chronic lymphocytic leukaemia patients were cancer-free two years after beginning treatment.