US drugmakers Moderna and Merck on Tuesday announced positive preliminary results for their developmental mRNA vaccine against skin cancer, when taken in combination with an anticancer drug.
In a trial of about 150 people with melanoma, taking the vaccine along with the cancer drug Keytruda reduced the risk of the cancer coming back or dying by 44%, compared with people treated with the anticancer drug alone.
Phase 3 in 2023
Moderna and Merck, known as MSD outside of North America, plan to publish the full results of the trial soon, the results of which have not yet been peer-reviewed. They also plan to launch so-called phase 3 trials in 2023, that is, in a much larger number of patients.
Messenger RNA technology has proven to be key in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Moderna had made a sensational entry into the pharmaceutical market by being one of the first, along with Pfizer-BioNTech, to offer a vaccine against Covid-19 using messenger RNA. This technology is considered promising in the fight against many other diseases. The cancer drug Keytruda is already licensed only in the United States.
The developed melanoma vaccine is “personalized”, “designed and produced based on the unique mutational signature” identified in the patient’s tumor, the statement explains. In the trial, patients underwent surgery to remove the tumor before receiving treatment, up to nine doses of the vaccine.
Around 325,000 new cases of melanoma were diagnosed in 2020 worldwide, according to the statement. The two US companies announced in October that they had reached an agreement to jointly develop and market this skin cancer vaccine. They plan to share the costs and potential benefits.
Source: BFM TV
