U.S. drugmakers Merck and Moderna said Wednesday a personalized cancer treatment had shown success in reducing the recurrence of melanoma tumors in a late-stage trial hailed by experts as a “breakthrough.”
Researchers have for years been trying to apply mRNA treatments against cancer, but this was the first time such a drug showed positive results in a large, late-stage clinical trial. Oncologist Marco Gerlinger, a professor at London’s Barts Cancer Institute, added that beyond being good news for patients with melanoma, it was “proof of principle that personalised cancer vaccines work. The trial lasted approximately a year and involved 1,137 patients who, following surgical removal of their cancers, were randomized into groups, with two-thirds receiving the new treatment plus pembrolizumab — the current standard-of-care drug — while the rest received pembrolizumab alone. Melanoma is one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer, with more than 330,000 new cases diagnosed worldwide in 2022.
The drug, called “intismeran autogene,” is based on the same messenger RNA (mRNA) technology behind Covid-19 vaccines. “Today marks an extraordinary milestone for Moderna, for mRNA science and, most importantly, for patients with cancer,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement. “I think it is fair to call it a breakthrough in the development of new cancer immunotherapies,” he added, while also noting the press release was short on details.
