Moderna and Merck's Cancer Vaccine Succeeds in Phase 3 Trial

Moderna and Merck have announced that their cancer vaccine, Intismeran, has succeeded in a Phase 3 trial. The trial, which involved 1,137 patients with stage IIB-IV melanoma whose tumors had been completely removed by surgery, met its primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival and a key secondary endpoint of distant metastasis-free survival.

In the trial, patients received either Keytruda combined with up to nine doses of Intismeran or Keytruda alone for about one year. The companies stated that no new safety signals were identified.

Moderna President Stephen Hoge said that this is the first time a clinically significant and statistically significant improvement over checkpoints like Keytruda has been seen in this population, and it's also the first time an individualized treatment has achieved this.