Triazene dacarbazine, developed by Dr. Fulmer Shealy and others in the early 1960s, became Southern Research’s first drug to achieve approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in May 1975. It was originally marketed by Bayer as DTIC-Dome.
Dacarbazine, a chemotherapy drug classified as an alkylating agent, is on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines.
It is used to treat metastatic malignant melanoma, Hodgkin’s disease, soft tissue sarcomas, neuroblastoma, fibrosarcomas, rhabdomyosarcoma, islet cell carcinoma, and medullary carcinoma of the thyroid.