Zeroing in on a skin cancer vaccine
Thanks to the HPV vaccine, Australia is on track to become
one of the first nations in the world to eliminate cervical cancer.
Now, research led by scientists Down Under has made another
breakthrough – this time for skin cancer.
The first personalized mRNA cancer vaccine has now succeeded
in a phase 3 clinical trial, reducing the risk of melanoma returning or causing
death by 42 percent compared with standard immunotherapy alone.
The results are even
better than scientists were expecting.
The global principal investigator, medical oncologist
Georgina Long from Melanoma Institute Australia (MIA), presented the results at
the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress 2026.
They are set to be published in the New England Journal
of Medicine.
"These findings are a foundational shift in our approach to cancer: harnessing the immune system in a more personalized way to reduce the risk of melanoma recurrence or death," says Long.
"This has not been achieved before in the history of
cancer drug development."
Medical oncologist Robert Vonderheide, president-elect of
the American Association for Cancer Research, who was not involved in the
trial, told
The New York Times the trial's results are up there with "our
biggest breakthroughs."
The mRNA vaccine was developed by Moderna and Merck, and it
is designed to stop melanoma from coming back after surgery.
First, researchers sequence the tumor from each patient, and
then they figure out what separates the 'fingerprint' of this tumor from other,
healthy cells in the body.
A vaccine based on that information essentially creates a
personalized 'wanted poster' of the cancer for the patient's own immune system.
"This is delivered as mRNA, so the body's own cells
display the poster to the immune system, showing it exactly what to look out
for and attack," says
Long.
The medicine works in conjunction with an existing
immunotherapy called Keytruda
(pembrolizumab).
"Cancer can fool the immune system with a fake friendly
handshake, so the immune system thinks the cancer cell is normal," explains
Long.
"Pembrolizumab blocks the handshake, allowing immune
cells to recognize the cancer and attack it, but it is the same drug for
everyone."
Personalizing a treatment to use alongside pembrolizumab
seems to improve the results.
The phase 3 clinical trial involved more than 1,100 patients
from 157 sites around the world, and the results back up impressive findings
from a phase 2 trial, published in 2024.
For patients who remained cancer-free six months after
starting treatment, the risk reduction for melanoma recurrence or death was 58
percent compared with pembrolizumab alone.
The mRNA vaccine is not yet available to patients in
Australia or the United States, but the results have entered a regulatory
review process.
That could take several years, depending on the nation.
In Australia, which has one of the highest melanoma rates in
the world, one person dies from this cancer every 6 hours.
A vaccine that could stop the cancer from recurring could
save numerous lives.
And it's not just skin cancer that could benefit from mRNA
technology.
"Having succeeded in melanoma, this proof of concept
could mark the beginning of a foundational shift in how we treat cancer,
helping patients remain cancer-free for longer," says
Long.
Alex Menzies, a medical oncologist at MIA, agrees.
"The hope for the near future is that it may not only
improve outcomes for melanoma patients with advanced disease, but also those
with other types of cancer where current immunotherapies are poorly
effective," Menzies explains.
That's an exciting idea, but there is still more work to be
done.
Recently, several randomized trials testing mRNA vaccines for colorectal cancer
and for
head and neck cancer have failed to reduce recurrence.
That makes these newest results even more important.
"The INTerpath-001 trial shows that treatment built
from the unique signature of a patient's own tumor, working alongside
checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy, can sharpen the immune system to find and
destroy any remaining cancer cells," says
Long.
"Just as email transformed how we communicate,
individualized neoantigen therapy has the potential to transform how we treat
cancer."
This article was fact-checked by Rebecca Dyer and edited by Rebecca Dyer. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know.