Mod­er­na and Mer­ck pre­pare for PhI­II tri­al of can­cer vac­cine, and an ex­pan­sion to lung can­cer: #AACR23

OR­LAN­DO – Mod­er­na and Mer­ck plan to launch a Phase III study this year for their per­son­al­ized can­cer vac­cine in melanoma, and have re­vealed more de­tails from a Phase IIb test that ear­li­er this year re­newed ex­cite­ment about the use of vac­cines in fight­ing tu­mors.

The news comes just a month af­ter Mod­er­na pres­i­dent Stephen Hoge said the com­pa­ny was “hope­ful” the mid-stage KEYNOTE-942 tri­al would form the ba­sis of an ac­cel­er­at­ed ap­proval fil­ing. While both com­pa­nies have since de­clined to com­ment in de­tail on their reg­u­la­to­ry plans, Mer­ck’s se­nior VP of clin­i­cal on­col­o­gy Er­ic Ru­bin said on Sat­ur­day that the tri­al was “not de­signed for reg­is­tra­tional in­tent.”

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