'Breakthrough' mRNA cancer drug cuts melanoma recurrence in major trial
WASHINGTON: US drugmakers Merck and Moderna said Wednesday a personalised cancer treatment had shown success in reducing the recurrence of melanoma tumors in a late-stage trial hailed by experts as a “breakthrough.”
US drug companies Merck and Moderna announced a breakthrough in personalized cancer treatment, with a new mRNA-based drug showing promising results in a large, late-stage clinical trial for melanoma. The drug, intismeran autogene, harnesses the same messenger RNA (mRNA) technology that made COVID-19 vaccines successful. In the trial, 1,137 patients who had undergone cancer surgery were divided into groups, with two-thirds receiving the new treatment combined with pembrolizumab, the current standard-of-care drug, while the others received pembrolizumab alone.
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel called the results "very encouraging" and emphasized the significant milestone for mRNA science and patients with cancer. Oncologists praised the findings as proof that personalized cancer vaccines can work, potentially transforming the landscape of cancer immunotherapies. Melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, accounted for over 330,000 new cases globally in 2022.
Merck and Moderna are now exploring the drug's potential in combination with other anti-cancer therapies across multiple tumor types, such as melanoma, lung, bladder, and kidney cancers.
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