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A 40-year-old Londoner who had been given months to live was said to have been "cured" of skin cancer after six months of having the drug Pembrolizumab injected (administered with other conventional drugs) in his bloodstream.

Pembrolizumab, a drug by Merck that aims to treat metastatic melanoma--a disease that is now known as the deadliest that causes thousands of deaths every year--is one of the latest immunotherapy treatments that enables the immune system to attack cancer.

Doctors have observed that three months into the treatment, the tumors have already started to disappear.

The man's consultant, Dr David Chao of Royal Free, said that they are not yet certain that the man is completely cured, but his current condition is really good.

This breakthrough discovery in the miraculous effects of the drug can bring about a paradigm shift in cancer treatment. Pembrolizumab is said to be a man-made antibody that enables blocking of cell death 1 or PD-1, which is what cancer cells use to protect themselves from the immune system. By taking away that blockage, the immune system would then be able to fight the disease altogether.

Dr Chao said that the results in the trial of the drug was good, as after 18 months of treatment with the drug, 62% of the patients were still alive and still being treated. 80% of the patients had positive reactions to the drug, 72% had shrunken tumors, and 39% had tumors that became only half their original size.

Meanwhile, two other major companies also showed positive results for treatment of melanoma.

The first clinical test conducted by biopharmaceutical company Amgen revealed positive results for immunotherapy as both a single medication or as a combined treatment for metastatic melanoma, the advanced stage of cancer wherein the cancer cells spread out from the skin towards the other parts of the body.

Bristol-Myers Squibb also disclosed that the cancer drug it developed known as Yervoy could potentially improve treatment for patients who have third-stage advances, metastatic, and the earlier stages of the disease.