Urgent.News

What's breaking now, across thousands of outlets.

Health & Medicine

BioNTech’s head and neck cancer vaccine misses first of two goals

An experimental mRNA cancer vaccine from BioNTech failed to meet one of two primary endpoints in a pivotal trial, adding to the obstacles faced by the company’s pipeline for such treatemts. The therapy, known as ...

BioNTech reported that its cancer immunotherapy drug, BNT113, failed to meet the primary endpoint in a recent clinical trial for treating head and neck cancer. The AHEAD-MERIT trial compared BNT113 combined with pembrolizumab to pembrolizumab alone in patients with HPV16-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma that had progressed.

The combination did not show a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival compared to the standard treatment, though overall survival results are still being evaluated. BioNTech's chief medical officer explained that the data still indicate the drug is working as intended. The drug targets two antigens frequently found in HPV16-positive tumors, which make up about a third of head and neck cancer cases.

Written by urgent.news from Investing.com's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.

This story

This is one outlet's version. Read the fullest account.

Read the original at endpoints.news →

More in Health & Medicine

More from Tuesday 13 October →