A 41 year-old Denver man lost his life waiting for an experimental drug that never came, ABC News reported. Nick Auden suffered from stage 4, terminal melanoma. He'd been accepted into trials for a non-approved drug over the summer, but was later disqualified following complications as a result of his cancer.

Perhaps fearing Auden would affect their research, the drug company wouldn't allow him to take it on his own, according to ABC News.

News of Auden's predicament spread when his wife, Amy, started an online petition called, "Save Locky's Dad," named after their seven-year son, Locky. (They also had two other children). With enough support, she was hoping her husband would be given the drugs under "compassion use" or "expanded access" clauses, according to ABC News. She managed 520,000 signatures through Change.org.

Still, it wasn't enough. Neither of the two companies -- Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb -- that make the anti-PD-1 drug would give it to Auden. Bristol-Myers Squibb said they were concerned about safety and Merck claimed they didn't have enough, according to ABC News.

Auden had a cancerous mole removed in 2010. He thought he was in the clear and shortly after returned to his active life of running and biking. But in 2011, the cancer had returned and had spread throughout his whole body.

Anti-PD-1 drugs, by their most basic definition, are intended to "teach" the immune system how to fight cancer, according to ABC News. In clinical trials, 38 percent of recipients saw their tumors shrink, and 52 percent of recipients who took a larger dose saw their tumors shrink. Compared with a survival rate of less than 10 percent, Auden was convinced they were his only chance.

"Some people survive, 90-odd percent don't," Auden said of his diagnosis in 2011.

Dr. Jedd Wolchok, an oncologist, had communicated with Auden through email and told ABC News that the drug could be a long term solution.

"This kind of medicine is not the kind of medicine that if it works, it works for a few weeks and stops working," said Wolchok, a melanoma specialist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "If medications like this work, they tend to benefit people for months or years. Some people might even be 'cured.'"

"Not everyone has as short a window as I," Auden said in October. "Why can't they supply me now rather than me missing by a couple of months? Imagine Amy explaining that to the kids ..."