Melanoma vaccine reduces death or cancer recurrence by 42%
In a world-first international trial, adding intismeran, a type of personalized therapeutic cancer vaccine made from each patient's own tumor, to pembrolizumab immunotherapy after surgery for high-risk melanoma reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 42%.
In a groundbreaking international clinical trial, a personalized cancer vaccine known as intismeran, combined with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab, was shown to reduce the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 42%. This revolutionary approach, known as individualized neoantigen therapy, was the first of its kind to demonstrate such a significant outcome in cancer treatment.
The trial, called INTerpath-001, involved 1,137 patients with high-risk melanoma who had undergone surgery but had not previously received any cancer treatment. The vaccine, created using mRNA technology, analyzes a patient's tumor to identify its unique neoantigen fingerprint, which is then presented to the immune system to help it recognize and attack the cancer cells.
Pembrolizumab works by releasing the brakes on the immune system, allowing immune cells to recognize and attack the cancer. The combination of intismeran and pembrolizumab proved to be more effective than pembrolizumab alone in preventing recurrence or death from melanoma.
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