Moderna ’ s mRNA Skin Cancer Vaccine Shows Early Promise in a New Study

Coming off the success of its mRNA vaccine for COVID-19, Moderna announced on Dec. 13 that it achieved encouraging results when it turned its vaccine technology against cancer. The company reported in a release that among 157 people with stage 3 or stage 4 melanoma, a personalized cancer vaccine that Moderna developed with Merck—created using mRNA genetic material from each patient’s respective tumors—reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 44% compared to standard care. “For the first time ever, we have evidence that it’s possible to develop a functional immune response that can treat patients’ cancer from a randomized controlled trial,” says Dr. Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] In the study, patients were randomly assigned to receive one of two treatments. One group was treated with the drug pembrolizumab, or Keytruda, an existing medication that releases the brake that the immune system normally has on attacking cancer cells, since cancer cells grow from the body’s own cells. The other group received Keytruda and a personalized cancer vaccine using mRNA technology. All of the patients had surgery to remove their melanoma, and for the vaccine group, Moderna scientists biopsied and genetically sequenced those tumors, then identified nearly three dozen genetic, personalized tumor flags, in the form of mRNA, for each patient’s immune system to recognize. These were then com...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Cancer COVID-19 Source Type: news