Mark Yarchoan, Co-Founder and CSO at Adventris Pharmaceuticals, shared on X:
“Excited to share my editorial in the NEJM accompanying the P3 trial of a personalized cancer vaccine in melanoma.
Title: Cancer Vaccines – From Treatment to Prevention
For those of us who have struggled to fund our labs studying cancer vaccines when so many failed in the clinic, the results feel like vindication.
What changed?
- Better vaccine platforms
- Targeting neoantigens
- Micrometastatic disease
- +PD-1
The curves only separate post-6 months (eg, delayed onset of vaccine-induced immunity).
Vaccine trials of the past that studied cancer vaccines as monotherapy in advanced cancers were always doomed.
Intismeran succeeds in adjuvant melanoma where ICI intensification repeatedly failed.
ICIs invigorate existing T cells, cancer vaccines also stimulate new T cell responses.
Cancer vaccines could eventually move into prevention or interception: ‘In theory, a vaccine against 25 recurrent mutational hotspots in genes such as KRAS, BRAF, and PIK3CA could target mutations found in more than 70% of colorectal, pancreatic, uterine, and melanoma.’
No room for acknowledgments in the editorial, so a special thanks here to Govind Warrier for a crash course in melanoma and H. Henry Wang for helpful comments.”
You can also read: Miguel Bronchud: Can Personalized mRNA Vaccines Transform Melanoma Treatment?