
Updated: Moderna claims cancer vaccine success in trial of mRNA shot with Merck
An experimental, mRNA-based cancer vaccine significantly reduced the risk that melanoma patients’ cancers would return and be fatal, Moderna and Merck said, in what the companies are calling the first-ever results from an mRNA therapy in a randomized trial of cancer patients.
In the Phase II trial, patients with Stage 3 or Stage 4 melanoma got Merck’s drug Keytruda, plus doses of a personalized cancer vaccine called mRNA-4157/V940 that the two developed jointly. Nine months later, the treatment had reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 44%, compared with Keytruda alone, the companies said Tuesday.
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