Moderna tests vaccine against black skin cancer
mRNA technology achieved a breakthrough during the coronavirus pandemic. Now Moderna wants to use it to achieve a medical milestone in the fight against skin cancer. The US pharmaceutical giant reports promising study results.
The US pharmaceutical company Moderna hopes to launch a vaccine against malignant melanoma in two years' time. "We expect that the product could be on the market in some countries by 2025 with accelerated approval," said Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel. The vaccine is intended to treat malignant melanoma, the most malignant form of skin cancer.
The cancer vaccine developed by Moderna is based on mRNA technology, which has already been used in the corona vaccines from Moderna and the Mainz-based company Biontech. In both cases, the vaccines are designed to activate the immune system. However, the cancer vaccine is not directed against a pathogen such as the coronavirus, but against the body's own cancer cells. According to the company, patients who already have skin cancer and who have had melanomas removed are to be treated. The vaccine should ensure that the cancer does not return.
So-called therapeutic vaccines are one of the great hopes in oncology, said Bancel. It is a matter of "immunotherapy 2.0". In conventional immunotherapy, patients are administered an antibody drug, such as Keytruda from the US pharmaceutical company MSD.
Hundreds of thousands of cases worldwide
In a clinical trial, 157 test subjects with advanced melanoma were administered the antibody drug together with the vaccine. The risk of the cancer returning or the patients dying was reduced by 49 percent with the combination compared to treatment with Keytruda alone, according to study results presented by Moderna. In a previous study, the risk of relapse and death was 44 percent.
Keytruda is "the best product on the market to date", said Bancel. In combination with the mRNA vaccine, however, "every second person" now survives. That is "enormous" in oncology. Moderna is now planning a large-scale clinical trial with a thousand test subjects for 2024. The company then intends to apply for conditional approval on this basis. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are already evaluating the data submitted by Moderna on the vaccine candidate in an accelerated review process. An estimated 325,000 people worldwide were diagnosed with malignant melanoma in 2020, and there were 57,000 deaths.
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Moderna's goal is to bring their cancer vaccine, designed for malignant melanoma, to markets as early as 2025, given positive trial results. This vaccine, powered by mRNA technology, aims to prevent the return of melanoma in patients who have undergone surgery.
The pharmaceutical industry, including companies like Moderna, are exploring various avenues to combat cancer, with therapeutic vaccines such as this one playing a significant role in oncology, as stated by Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel.
Source: www.ntv.de
