Cancer vaccines are having a renaissance
After years of lackluster results, cancer vaccines seem poised for success. Finally. Originally published by Cassandra Willyard at MIT Technology Review, on May 3, 2024 Last week of April, Moderna and Merck launched a large clinical tria l in the UK of a promising new cancer therapy : a personalized vaccine that targets a specific set of mutations found in each individual’s tumor. This study is enrolling patients with melanoma . But the companies have also launched a phase III trial for lung cancer . And earlier this month BioNTech and Genentech announced that a personalized vaccine they developed in collaboration shows promise in pancreatic cancer , which has a notoriously poor survival rate. Drug developers have been working for decades on vaccines to help the body’s immune system fight cancer, without much success. But promising results in the past year suggest that the strategy may be reaching a turning point . Will these therapies finally live up to their promise?