New skin cancer drug 'very exciting'

Patients with advanced skin cancer could benefit from a pill called Vemurafenib, a cancer meeting in Chicago has heard.

The drug was tested on a group of 675 patients with advanced melanoma. It appears to give patients a greater chance of surviving longer than chemotherapy.

It works by acting on a faulty gene, BRAF, found in half of terminally ill patients whose cancer has spread to other organs.

The results were presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Nell Barrie from Cancer Research UK says it is a "very exciting" development.