Moderna and Merck's Personalised Melanoma Vaccine Shows Promising Results
Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck have announced preliminary successes in the Phase 3 trial of their personalised melanoma vaccine. The vaccine uses mRNA to provide instructions corresponding to selected neoantigens, which can potentially be recognised by the immune system.
The study involved 1,137 patients with surgically removed, high-risk melanoma and met its primary endpoint, showing a statistically significant improvement in recurrence-free survival compared to pembrolizumab alone.
This is the first positive Phase III trial of an individualised neoantigen therapy and an mRNA-based cancer treatment. The results are significant, as they demonstrate the potential of this technology to treat cancer.
According to experts, this breakthrough has been made possible by the acceleration of mRNA technology, vaccine science, and manufacturing following the pandemic.