For those affected, an effective treatment option for black skin cancer can’t come soon enough, but now there is finally a glimmer of hope. A vaccine against the most malignant form of skin cancer is expected to be on the market in 2025.
The American pharmaceutical company Moderna hopes to launch a vaccine against black skin cancer in two years. “We assume that the product could reach the market in some countries with accelerated approval by 2025,” Moderna boss Stéphane Bancel told news agency AFP in an interview.
The vaccine is intended for the treatment of so-called malignant melanoma, the most malignant form of skin cancer.
Vaccines are intended to activate the immune system
The cancer vaccine developed by Moderna is based on mRNA technology, which was also used in the corona vaccines from Moderna and Biontech/Pfizer. In both cases, the vaccines are intended to activate the immune system.
However, the cancer vaccine is not directed against a pathogen such as the coronavirus, but against the body’s own cancer cells. According to the company, patients who already suffer from skin cancer and have had their melanomas removed should be treated. The vaccine should ensure that the cancer does not come back.
Studies are already promising
So-called therapeutic vaccines are among the big hopes in oncology, Bancel said. It is “immunotherapy 2.0”. With the usual immunotherapy, patients are given an antibody drug, such as Keytruda from the American pharmaceutical company MSD.
In a clinical trial, 157 subjects with advanced melanoma received the antibody drug along with the vaccine.
Success for oncology ‘huge’
The combination reduced the risk of the cancer returning or patients dying by 49 percent compared to treatment with Keytruda alone, according to the study results presented by Moderna on Thursday. In a previous study, the risk of relapse and death was 44 percent.
Keytruda is “the best product on the market yet,” Bancel said. In combination with the mRNA vaccine, “one in two people now survives.” This is “huge” in oncology.
Vaccine in accelerated testing procedure
Moderna is now planning a large-scale clinical trial with a thousand subjects for 2024. Based on this, the company then wants to apply for conditional approval. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are already reviewing Moderna’s vaccine candidate data in an accelerated review process.
In 2020, an estimated 325,000 people worldwide were diagnosed with black skin cancer, and there were also 57,000 deaths.
Source: Krone
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