ORLANDO, Fla. — For years, early experimental results offered hope that scientists might be able to offer cancer vaccines tailored to an individual’s tumor as a treatment. On Sunday, a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine developed by Moderna and Merck provided the first evidence that the approach can truly offer clinical benefit to patients.
The vaccine, called a neoantigen cancer vaccine, greatly reduced a patient’s risk of relapse when combined with the Merck immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) than when the drug was given alone.