The pharmaceutical company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. has informed today that its experiment to test whether a drug used for treating skin cancer can be helpful in treating prostate cancer has not succeed.

Yervoy was the drug being tested by the company. Though, the drug was successful in showing some positive results in the patients, who were suffering from an initial stage of the disease.

"These results offer important insights for ongoing and future studies of Yervoy in prostate cancer, including a second large trial of Yervoy in patients with less-advanced disease," said W. R. Gerritsen, from Nijmegen Medical Centre, Radboud University in the Netherlands.

At present, Yervoy is used in over 40 countries for the treatment of melanoma. This drug was approved to treat this deadly stage of skin cancer in the year 2011 and is one of the most successful drugs produced by the company.

Drug Yervoy blocks the action of CTLA-4 protein and allows the immune system to kill the cancer cells in body.

As many as 800 patients were involved in the trial to test Yervoy efficacy. Half of the total patients were treated with this drug after receiving radiation, while rests of them were given placebo after undergoing radiation. It was observed that patients, who received Yervoy lived an extra 1.2 months in comparison to those taking placebo. This time difference is not significant enough.