Alex Strudwick Young, Assistant Professor of Human Genetics and Statistical Geneticist at UCLA, shared by Yannick Buccella, MD, GI and Molecular Oncologist in Zurich and Founder of the Young-Onset GI Cancer Center, on X:
“This news appears disappointing for cancer vaccines in immunologically cold tumors like MSS CRC. However, the trial was not comparable to the recent successful melanoma trial, where the vaccine was combined with an effective immunotherapy for melanoma.
Perhaps a cancer vaccine could still be effective in MSS CRC when combined with an immunotherapy that is also effective, like bot/bal. That’s my plan at least.”
Quoting Yannick Buccella:
“BioNTech/Roche just pulled the plug on their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine trial in colorectal cancer. Disappointing, but the measured read matters more than the headline.
What happened:
the Phase 2 of the vaccine after surgery in colorectal cancer was terminated after the safety board found an overall-survival imbalance and decided more treatment wouldn’t change the result.
On safety specifically: the ‘imbalance’ means numerically more deaths on one side, but with immature data in a small trial, that can reflect chance, the specific patients enrolled, or the cancer itself, not necessarily harm from the vaccine.
It’s a signal that stopped the trial, not proof the vaccine hurt people. But here’s the important context: this was always one of the longer-shot uses.
These vaccines seem to work best where the immune system already engages the tumor, the same cancers where immunecheckpoint drugs work. And many colorectal cancers are ‘cold’, which means these drugs tend not to work that well. So a broad colorectal trial was betting against the grain.
What this does and doesn’t mean:
- DOESN’T mean ‘mRNA cancer vaccines don’t work.’
The melanoma programme hit its Phase 3. Different cancer, different odds.
- DOES mean this technology won’t work everywhere, it’ll likely track the cancers that are already immune-responsive.
The trials that actually matter for this platform: pancreatic cancer (the promising early-signal one) and non-small-cell lung cancer. So: a real miss in a hard target, not a verdict on the whole field. The technology is being sorted cancer-by-cancer, which is exactly how honest science looks. Some bets lose. Watch the space in pancreatic and lung.”
Other articles about mRNA cancer vaccine on OncoDaily.