Moderna, the US biotech company that emerged from relative obscurity to become a household name during the pandemic, published the results of a clinical trial last month that sent ripples through the world of cancer research.
Conducted in partnership with the pharma company MSD, the trial demonstrated that a messenger RNA (mRNA) cancer vaccine, used in combination with immunotherapy, could offer significant benefit to patients with advanced melanoma who had received surgery to remove tumours. After a year of treatment, the phase IIb trial found that the combination reduced the risk of cancer recurrence or death by 44%.
While mRNA has become synonymous with the Covid-19 vaccines developed by Moderna, Pfizer and BioNTech, cancer has long been the ultimate goal of the technology. Now, the NHS in the UK has launched a groundbreaking partnership with BioNTech to try to fast-track the development of mRNA cancer vaccines
