Moderna and its partner Merck said on Wednesday that they had begun enrolling patients in a late-stage study testing their personalized mRNA-based skin cancer vaccine in combination with the immunotherapy Keytruda.
Data from a mid-stage study in 157 patients had shown that the vaccine combination cut the risk of recurrence or death by 44% in patients with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, when compared with Keytruda alone.
More than 1,000 patients from over 25 countries are expected to be included in the current trial, with the first patients being enrolled in Australia.
The companies are testing the vaccine in melanoma patients whose tumors were surgically removed before being treated with either the drug-vaccine combination or Keytruda alone.
The vaccine is tailored for each patient to generate T-cells, a key part of the body's immune response, based on the specific mutational signature of a tumor.
Merck's Keytruda is a so-called checkpoint inhibitor designed to disable a protein called programmed death 1, or PD-1, that helps cancer to evade the immune system.
BioNTech SE and Gritstone Bio are also working on competing cancer vaccines based on the mRNA technology.
Scientists have been chasing the dream of vaccines to treat cancer for decades with few successes. According to industry experts, mRNA vaccines, which can be produced in as little as eight weeks, paired with drugs that rev up the immune system may lead to a new generation of cancer therapies.
The late-stage trial's main goal is to measure the amount of time patients live without the cancer returning when treated with the combination, compared to treatment with Keytruda alone.
The duration of the study would depend on when that occurs, the companies said.
© Thomson Reuters 2023.
14 Comments
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Thuban
Is it one of those Moderna vaccines that doesn't actually prevent illness but only prevents hospitalization (supposedly)
Mr Kipling
Thuban....
Yes . One of those vaccines.
Just like ALL vaccines.
virusrex
The moderna vaccine for covid do prevent illness, (and complications, hospitalizations and deaths). The disinformation from antivaxxer groups was about preventing infection, which is not something vaccines aim to do.
Roy Sophveason
"Prevent hospitalisation but not illness" ... for skin cancer? Did that make sense in your head, either before or after you wrote it?
wallace
Vaccines prevent people from getting sick and dying. Smallpox. Polio.
Bad Haircut
Those vaccines weren't rushed through trials and their unfavourable results buried. There is a difference.
Roy Sophveason
They were not. The trials were staggered, but they were regular trials, each finished in their regular time.
And you know that because you discovered the real results, did you?
virusrex
A difference with what? that did not happen either with the covid vaccines nor with the one this article talks about, making up imaginary situations is not an argument, specially when the clinical data from literally billions of doses around the world support completely what was found in the clinical trials.
gcFd1
Moderna and its partner Merck said on Wednesday that they had begun enrolling patients in a late-stage study testing their personalized mRNA-based skin cancer vaccine in combination with the immunotherapy Keytruda.
Good news.
Roy Sophveason
Yikes, don't remind me. Of all the weapons-grade guano one had to read over the last three and a half years, that one really takes the bullhockey cake and an extra serving of frosting on the side. The fact that there's people, plural!, who unironically believe that certifiable wingnut to be uniquely qualified to be president honestly scares the crap out of me.
gcFd1
More than 1,000 patients from over 25 countries are expected to be included in the current trial, with the first patients being enrolled in Australia.
Excellent step forward as skin cancer occurs at a high rate in Australia, (and is the most common cancer in the US) so thanks to the US universities, such Oregon State University, and US global health authorities such as the National Institutes of Health, which backed one of the studies used here, and of course the FDA which is backing the vaccine.
virusrex
That is incorrect, the FDA is doing nothing of the sort, once the vaccine is fully developed and tested it may approve it for use in the US, but its role is only that. It can't back up a vaccine that has not yet showed efficacy and specially safety, since the way for it to be used is related with several risks for the health and life of the patients.
Support for mRNA vaccines would be something more like the WHO is doing:
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/who-officially-launches-mrna-vaccine-hub-cape-town-2023-04-20/
餓死鬼
No, I think it might be one of those vaccines that prevents illness but doesn't prevent hospitalization. You're going to hospital whether you like it or not!
TaiwanIsNotChina
The going to the hospital part is where you approach death.