Patients undergoing chemotherapy will soon be able to use a medication patch to ease the nausea coming with the treatment.

The Food and Drug Administration approved on Monday Galashiels-based pharmaceutical company ProStrakan’s anti-nausea and vomiting patch for chemotherapy patients called Sancuso.

The company now hopes to launch it in the US before the end of the year. Analysts predict peak sales of $100 million annually.

The patch is designed to provide relief for up to five days. It is worn on the arm and delivers a widely used anti-nausea medicine, known as granisetron, through the skin. Granisetron is sold under the brand name Kytril by Roche Pharmaceuticals.

“It will be another way that we can address nausea and vomiting, coming from a route that we haven’t had before. The patch is a nice option,” Barbara Rogers of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and also a consultant to ProStrakan.

The FDA approval was based on a Phase III clinical trial in which the patch was compared with granisetron and placebo. The trial found the patch as good as granisetron at preventing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, ProStrakan said in a news release. The main side effect of Sancuso was constipation.

About a million people have to undergo chemotherapy annually and as many as 70 percent develop nausea. The problem can be successfully dealt when it occurs while in hospital, but nausea usually occurs after patients are sent home. Although there are many anti-nausea pills available, many patients have difficulty swallowing.  

“The main benefit will be for people who have difficulty taking oral medications,” Rogers said.