Personalized Skin Cancer Vaccine Slashes Risks

Merck and Moderna announced Thursday that a personalized vaccine targeting melanoma reduced the risk of death or cancer recurrence by 42% when combined with standard treatment, a major breakthrough for the deadliest form of skin cancer. The pharmaceutical partners confirmed these late-stage trial results as they move forward with regulatory authorities to seek approval for the vaccine. This success also reinforces broader hopes that mRNA technology can deliver individualized medicines to fight cancer.

“From the beginning, we believed mRNA technology could make it possible to develop cancer treatments uniquely matched to each patient’s tumor,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. The trial results “mark a defining moment for that vision and show what’s possible when we rethink how medicines are made,” he added, stating that the data supports their conviction that mRNA has the potential to fundamentally change cancer treatment.

The release of specific data comes after an embargo was broken. While the companies previously announced in August that the vaccine had succeeded in the trial, they withheld details pending a scheduled presentation at the European Society of Medical Oncology conference in Madrid. The data was slated for release on Saturday; however, following an early report by an oncology news site, the companies released the top-line results immediately.

The full dataset has been accepted for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, lending further weight to the findings. The Phase 3 trial involved 1,137 patients who had undergone surgery for stage IIB through IV melanoma prior to enrollment. Participants were randomly assigned in a 2-to-1 ratio to receive either the personalized mRNA vaccine alongside standard treatment or standard treatment alone.

The standard treatment administered in the trial was Merck’s established monoclonal antibody therapy, Keytruda. The announcement marks a significant advancement in the medical field regarding personalized oncology treatments.