Mod­er­na kicks off mR­NA can­cer vac­cine study; Biotech stocks were checked this month -- but that's a good thing

→ Mod­er­na has kicked off its Phase I study for a per­son­al­ized can­cer vac­cine, with the first dose in pa­tients an­nounced to­day. The mes­sen­ger RNA-based vac­cine, named mR­NA-4157, ac­counts for 20 pa­tient-spe­cif­ic mu­ta­tions and is to be test­ed both on its own (for re­sect­ed sol­id tu­mors) and in com­bi­na­tion with Mer­ck’s Keytru­da (for un­re­sectable sol­id tu­mors). “Hav­ing now suc­cess­ful­ly de­signed, man­u­fac­tured and dosed a com­plete­ly cus­tomized per­son­al­ized can­cer vac­cine, we look for­ward to pro­gress­ing the Phase I clin­i­cal study and gath­er­ing im­por­tant hu­man da­ta on mR­NA-4157 in the months ahead,” said CMO Tal Zaks in a state­ment. The biotech uni­corn plans to en­roll up to 90 pa­tients in the tri­al, dubbed KEYNOTE-603. In a young field that com­bines two of the hottest con­cepts, where Eli Lil­ly is now al­so a play­er, the re­sults will like­ly have im­por­tant im­pli­ca­tions.

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