STAT+: After a cancer vaccine’s first success, the race is on to expand the impact — SkimNews
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- Intismeran produced the first pivotal customized-mRNA result, reducing the risk of recurrence or death by 42% when combined with Keytruda versus Keytruda alone in a Merck and Moderna trial.
- European Society for Medical Oncology convened in Madrid, where discussion immediately turned to how melanoma specialists should adopt the medicine and how widely the novel vaccines can be deployed.
- James Larkin of Royal Marsden Hospital, the scientific co-chair for the ESMO meeting, said at an opening press conference that the approach “may be applicable to other types of tumors.”
- Vinod Balachandran of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center called the cancer-vaccine field’s history “long and sordid” and said its accumulated failures amounted to essentially 100 years.
Why it matters: For patients in the trial and the melanoma specialists considering use, the 42% reduction in recurrence or death risk with intismeran plus Keytruda is the first pivotal win after roughly 100 years of failure. The immediate change is that ESMO debate has moved to adoption and applicability to other tumor types.
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