Moderna and Merck have announced a major development in cancer treatment, with its personalised cancer vaccine showing positive results in a late-stage clinical trial for melanoma, also known as skin cancer.
The vaccine, intismeran autogene, when combined with the immunotherapy drug Keytruda, reduced skin cancer recurrence and the results were impressive in comparison to using Keytruda alone. The announcement marks an important step in the development of personalised cancer vaccines and could expand the use of technology beyond infectious diseases.
As per Reuters, the trial enrolled 1,137 high-risk patients with stage
IIB-IV melanoma that had been surgically removed. Volunteers were randomised to receive up to nine doses of Keytruda plus the personalised vaccine or Keytruda alone for about one year. The companies said no new safety signals have emerged in the trial. In January, the companies announced results of a mid-stage trial of the treatment showing that it reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49 per cent after five years.
How does Moderna’s personalised cancer vaccine work?
Unlike conventional vaccines that are designed to protect against infections, these vaccines are developed using information from an individual patient's tumour.
Doctors analyse tumour tissue to identify mutations to create an individualised mRNA vaccine designed to train the patient's immune system to recognise and attack cancer cells carrying these targets.
Rather than giving every patient the same cancer vaccine, the treatment focuses on the tumour's biological characteristics.
For patients with melanoma, the development offers a potentially important new direction by using a patient's own tumour diagnosis to create a highly targeted response.
