U.S. pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck say a clinical trial for an experimental Moderna mRNA vaccine used in combination with the Merck cancer therapy drug Keytruda reduced the chance of recurrence or death from melanoma by nearly 50%.
In a release from Moderna on Thursday, the company said the trial included 157 patients with high-risk stage III/IV melanoma. Following complete surgical resection of the melanoma, the patients received a combination of either the vaccine and Keytruda — or Keytruda alone — over the course of one year.
After approximately three years, researchers found that patients who received the drugs in combination showed a 49% reduction in the risk of recurrence of the cancer or death, compared to the use of Keytruda alone.
Patients who received the combination also saw a 62% reduction in the chances of the cancer spreading elsewhere in the body.
The Moderna vaccine’s mRNA technology — just as with the company’s COVID vaccine — is designed to train the immune system to recognize and attack specific mutations in cancer cells.
Merck’s Keytruda drug is an immunotherapy that also works in the body’s immune system by increasing its ability to help detect and fight tumor cells.
As a result of the trial, Merck reports, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for the drug combination, a process designed to expedite the development of the treatment.
Europe’s drug regulator, the European Medicines agency, has granted the treatment a similar designation.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States, and melanoma is it most serious form.
The CDC reports that in 2020, the most recent year for which figures are available, 77,230 new cases of melanoma were reported, and 8,214 people died of the cancer.
Some information for this report was provided by Reuters.
