Moderna and MSD are researching how their therapy could treat a wide range of cancers
The world’s first personalised mRNA cancer jab for melanoma – which also has the potential to stop lung, bladder and kidney cancer – is being tested in British patients.
The “gamechanger” jab, which offers hope of a cure, is custom-built for each person in just a few weeks.
It works by telling the body to hunt down cancer cells and prevent the deadly disease from coming back.
A stage 2 trial of the jab, involving pharma firms Moderna and MSD, found it dramatically reduced the risk of the cancer returning in melanoma patients.
Now a final phase 3 trial has been launched, led by University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH).
Dr Heather Shaw, national co-ordinating investigator for the trial, said the jab had the potential to cure people with melanoma and is being tested in other cancers.
Sharing the trial details exclusively with the PA news agency, she said: “This is one of the most exciting things we’ve seen in a really long time.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
It really is the most likely method of killing cancer. The immune system is fantastic at finding and removing threats, so teaching it what to kill instead of trying to figure out how to kill it ourselves makes a lot of sense.
This type of treatment has been “almost here” for several years, now.
What’s going to suck is that I know in the US it is going to be really expensive and insurance companies won’t let anyone use it unless they’ve tried all the shitty and often short lived treatments first. The ones with all of the side effects and suffering.
