It’s a personalized mRna vaccine, tailored to the individual patient, against the worst of skin cancers, melanoma. And in the United Kingdom it will be offered as part of an important trial launched with the National Health Service (NHS), considered by experts to be an important step forward. Among the first patients to be treated is Steve Young, 52, from Stevenage, reports the BBC online. The man underwent surgery in August to remove a melanoma from his scalp. His clinical path now also includes the personalized vaccine, which doctors at UCLH (University College London Hospitals) are administering in combination with another drug, an immunotherapy, pembrolizumab.
The aim is to instruct the immune system to recognize and eliminate any tumor cells, to prevent the cancer from returning. The promise? It is to halve the risks. Data from a phase II trial, published in December, found that people with severe, high-risk melanomas who received the vaccine along with immunotherapy were nearly half (49%) as likely to die or develop a disease. relapse after 3 years compared to those who did not receive the vaccine.
The shield shot, mRNA-4157 (V940), uses the same technology as current Covid vaccines and is being tested in late-stage Phase III trials. The combined treatment, made by Moderna and MSD, is not yet routinely available in the NHS, outside of clinical trials. Experts in other countries, including Australia, are also trying it on patients, to gather more evidence and see if it can be spread on a wider scale. The composition of the vaccine is modified to suit the individual patient: in other words it is designed to match the unique genetic signature of that tumor and works by instructing the body to produce proteins or antibodies that attack markers or antigens present only on those tumor cells.
According to UCLH researcher Heather Shaw, the vaccine has the potential to treat people affected by melanoma, and is being tested on other tumors: lung, bladder, kidney. “It’s one of the most exciting things we’ve seen in a long time,” the expert highlighted. “It’s absolutely tailor-made for the patient – you couldn’t give it to the next patient because it wouldn’t work.” The scientist believes there is real hope that the therapy could be a “game changer”, especially as it appears to have “relatively tolerable side effects”.
The UK part of the international trial aims to recruit at least 60-70 patients across 8 centres, including London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Leeds. Patients must have had surgical removal of high-risk melanoma within the last 12 weeks to ensure the best outcome.
Young is undergoing treatment in London and told ‘BBC Radio 4’ he felt he was “really doing something to fight a potential invisible enemy. The scans showed I was radiologically clear, but of course there was still the possibility I had cells tumors that were floating around undetected. So rather than just sit there and wait and hope it never comes back, I had the chance to ‘put on some boxing gloves’ and get through it.”
