Nick Auden, the charismatic father of three who became internationally famous for his efforts to secure an experimental drug to treat his Stage 4 cancer, died Nov. 22 at his home in Denver. He was 41.
Auden and his wife, Amy, won international attention, including 500,000 signatures on a Change.org petition and more than 31,000 followers on Facebook, for their recent campaign to persuade Merck or Bristol-Myers Squibb to give Auden the experimental anti-PD-1 drug.
Diagnosed with melanoma in September 2011, Nick Auden, a lawyer who was raised in Australia, was told he probably would die within a year. At the time, his wife was pregnant with their third child.
With the help of radiation and experimental treatments, Auden outlived that prognosis. He became well enough to train with the Denver Bulldogs, his Australian-rules football club, and to go skiing, cycling, hiking and four-wheel driving in the mountains.
But the tumors continued to grow. Auden learned about the anti-PD-1 drugs and their promising effect on melanoma. Oncologist Jedd Wolchok of New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center was widely quoted saying that the drug might benefit patients “for months or years.”
In July, Nick Auden learned that he’d qualified for a Merck clinical trial involving the drug. But hours after receiving the good news, he was in the emergency room with a perforated intestine, which disqualified him.
The Audens tried to persuade Merck or Bristol-Myers Squibb to give Auden the drug under compassionate-use rules, which allows patients access to experimental drugs as an individual case study.
They made a website and video plea, “Save Locky’s Dad,” that launched in September. In it, which the eldest Auden son, Lachlan, age 7, asks viewers for help with their cause. It attracted the attention of celebrities including the English comedian Ricky Gervais, the Hawthorn Hawks football club, and former Melbourne Lord Mayor Ron Walker.
Earlier this month, Auden and his wife flew to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, for an 11th-hour experimental treatment called TIL Therapy. But during treatment, Auden was transferred to the intensive care ward. The Audens returned to Denver on Nov. 19.
“He was just so positive that he could get the drug, positive until the end,” Amy Auden said. “We had no idea how difficult it would be to convince the drug companies to give it to him. Merck said they would open compassionate use trial in the third quarter of 2014. It was their last offer to us.”
Besides his wife, survivors include sons Lachlan and Evan, age 1; daughter Hayley, age 5, all of Lone Tree; parents Kay and Peter Auden; brothers Ben and Sacha Auden; and sister Katrina Auden, all of Melbourne, Australia.
A funeral was held at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church. The family suggests donations in Nick Auden’s memory to MD Anderson Cancer Center in support of the TIL Therapy research program at gifts.mdanderson.org.
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477, cmartin@denverpost.com or twitter.com/byclairemartin
