Messenger RNA immunization is not preventative and studies indicate efficacy of combined use with the immunotherapy drug Keytruda at a late stage of treatment
pharmaceutical companies Modern and Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD) will begin phase three trials of a messenger RNA immunizer after a study showed the vaccine could be used against an aggressive type of skin cancer, melanoma. The vaccine is not preventive and tests indicate that it should be used together with the immunotherapy drug Keytruda, already in an advanced stage of treatment, as explained by Dr. Márcia Abade, medical director of MSD Brazil: “The vaccine is in combination with Keytruda, with pembrolizumab, which is MSD’s immunotherapy. What’s very exciting to us is that there was a phase two study, a study of 157 patients, where patients using this vaccine plus pembrolizumab were compared, with pembrolizumab alone, the immunotherapy alone, in patients who had a high risk of onset of the disease back. They already had melanoma and when there was this combination against immunotherapy alone it was seen that there was a 44% reduction in the risk of recurrence, i.e. the reduction in the risk that the disease would recur precisely due to the association of immunotherapy with Moderna’s messenger RNA vaccine”.
The doctor explains that, despite being in an experimental phase, the vaccine has an innovative technology since the creation process is individualized: “It is specific to that patient. It is individualized for that cancer, that patient. How you do it? A biopsy of that cancer is taken and then it is examined for the mutations of that cancer, analyzed by a laboratory. This analysis is called next-generation sequencing. And the mutations of that specific cancer of that person are analyzed and up to 34 neo-antigens are taken, antigens of that mutation, to then make an individualized messenger RNA vaccine for each patient.
Phase three of the study is expected to begin next year, but Dr. Márcia reminds that the technology may still take time to reach patients: “We hope that in the next few years, I can’t say exactly how many, we will be able to demonstrate this efficacy and bring this innovation to the daily treatment of cancer patients ”. With the slogan “Don’t wait to feel it on your skin”, December is the month of awareness of the risks of skin cancer, which corresponds to 33% of all diagnoses of this disease in Brazil. Approximately 185,000 new cases of the disease are registered each year.
*With information from reporter Nanny Cox
