The family of a baby fighting a rare form of cancer have been told she has weeks left to live unless they can raise £500,000 for a life-saving drug that is only available in America.
One-year-old Melody Aggett was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer known as acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) when she was just four months old.
Since then, the infant from Poole has endured rounds of chemotherapy, regular blood and platelet transfusions and weeks at a time in intensive care as doctors tried to control the disease.
But in a devastating blow, a bone marrow transplant – described by her doctors as the ‘final treatment option’ available in Britain – failed, leaving Melody’s parents facing the unthinkable reality that nothing more could be done.
Melody’s parents, Rachel Elizabeth and Kevin Aggett, say a new drug used in the United States is now their daughter’s ‘last hope’ of survival.
The treatment, called Revuforj, comes with an eye-watering cost. At more than £20,000 a month, it is not funded by the NHS – meaning the family must raise around £500,000 to give Melody a chance at life.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Melody’s parents said the drug – of which Melody would be the first recipient of in Britain – is now their daughter’s final lifeline.
Mr Aggett, 40, said: ‘We have always had difficult conversations with doctors throughout Melody’s treatment. But after the failed bone marrow transplant, this was different.
‘We were taken into a room and told there is nothing else they can do, and our first thought was, ‘Well, are you sure?’
‘We were told Melody needed palliative care and that the hospital would put that in place. We were also advised to go home and spend the last few weeks that we would have with Melody together, and just to make the most of family time.
‘However, we refused to accept that was it. We managed to find a drug – Revuforj – by researching online and we saw it had seen success in treating Melody’s type of leukaemia in America.
‘We then relayed this information to our consultant and the specialist team at the hospital in Southampton where she is being treated.’
Revuforj, an FDA-approved oral drug used to treat adults and children with acute leukaemia, is designed to slow the growth of cancer cells.
It was approved in the US after clinical trials showed successful remission rates in leukaemia patients, but it is not yet available on the NHS.
Melody’s oncology team at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) submitted an emergency specialist request to the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for permission to use the drug.
The request was granted, meaning Revuforj can legally be imported from the United States for Melody’s treatment.
But the cost is high. One month of treatment costs £20,500, and Melody is expected to need the drug for up to two years, bringing the total to around £500,000.
Melody’s parents have set up a GoFundMe page to raise the £500,000 needed for the treatment.
So far, they have raised nearly £60,000 – which covers only three months.
Ms Elizabeth, 34, said: ‘It’s a long-term drug, so she will need to have it more than likely for two years. This is why we need to raise such a significant amount of money.
‘£100,000 will then allow us to purchase the first couple of months of the drug, but of course, for us to get the supply that we need for two years, we need to keep pushing and find £500,000.
‘Now we’ve had the authority, the approval for the drug – we could purchase it today and desperately need to.
‘We asked our consultant last week if they had this drug in front of them right now, when would they give it to Melody. And they said, ‘I would have started it yesterday for her.’
‘There may come a point very soon that Melody gets too poorly that we can’t use it. Now, her leukaemia levels are okay – but that could change at any point, so this is very urgent.’
Melody was diagnosed with AML in April 2025 after her parents became concerned when cold-like symptoms failed to clear after ten days.
Her mother initially called NHS 111 for advice but was transferred to a 999 call. Melody was taken to hospital the same day, where doctors soon delivered the devastating diagnosis.
Mr Aggett said: ‘A lot of the time it doesn’t feel real. Cancer is always something that happens to someone else; it doesn’t happen to you, or a loved one.
‘At certain points through her treatment thereafter, she has suffered tremendously. Unfortunately, she is prone to getting every single side effect possible of every single drug that she takes. And normally, the worst form of the side effect.’
Throughout 2025, Melody underwent two intensive rounds of chemotherapy, requiring repeated blood and platelet transfusions to prevent dangerous bleeding.
She later spent several weeks on a ventilator and endured a prolonged stay in intensive care before doctors recommended a bone marrow transplant at Great Ormond Street Hospital as a ‘last attempt’ to cure her cancer.
The transplant took place on August 15, 2025. However, Melody developed acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) shortly thereafter – a severe complication in which the donated cells attack the recipient’s body.
By October 3, Melody’s parents were told she had relapsed.
Ms Elizabeth said: ‘At the moment, day to day, she is happy, but we aren’t doing any huge treatments.
‘But if she starts Revuforj, this will obviously be the next huge treatment, and so, it’s difficult to say how she will be. Although we’re not going to America, we will be having a lengthy hospital stay here in the UK to monitor any potential bad side effects.
‘If we can raise enough money to access Revuforj, it would mean more than we can even put into words – it will literally save her life.
‘We haven’t got that kind of money just sitting around, and without help we wouldn’t have this opportunity to be able to purchase this drug.
‘We want to help Melody and to save Melody, but we’re also hoping that by us using this drug and Melody using this drug, that will help other children in the future, and it will help other people to be able to access it going forward.’
