Promising Results for mRNA Cancer Vaccine from Moderna and Merck

Cancer treatments have been veering toward more personalized approaches that recruit the immune system, and the latest results involving an mRNA-based therapy from Moderna and an immunotherapy from Merck show that combining them may result in significant benefit for certain cancer patients. In a release, the two companies report that people with melanoma who received Moderna’s therapy, intismeran, and Merck’s pembrolizumab (Keytruda), lived longer without any recurrence of their cancer, as well as had fewer incidences of their cancer spreading, compared to those receiving Keytruda alone, which is the current standard treatment. Combining the two therapies seems to lead to better outcomes in this later-stage trial. Moderna’s intismeran is not yet approved, while Merck’s Keytruda was first approved to treat melanoma in 2014, and in 2019 to treat melanoma in people after tumors were removed. The current study included people in this latter group with stage 2 to stage 4 melanoma who were treated with either intismeran and Keytruda or Keytruda alone after surgeons removed the bulk of their tumors.“What we’re trying to do here is to tell the immune system that it missed the signature of ...