Scientists have hailed a new vaccine to treat lung cancer as ‘groundbreaking’, saying it has the potential to save thousands of lives.
Researchers at the University College London hospitals NHS foundation trust (UCLH) have begun trials to test the mRNA jab, known as BNT116, that is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease.
Professor Siow Ming Lee, a consultant medical oncologist at UCLH said: ‘We are now entering this very exciting new era of mRNA-based immunotherapy clinical trials to investigate the treatment of lung cancer. It’s simple to deliver, and you can select specific antigens in the cancer cell, and then you target them. This technology is the next big phase of cancer treatment.’
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The phase 1 clinical trial has begun in 34 research sites in seven countries: the UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey. Overall, about 130 patients – from early-stage before surgery or radiotherapy, to late-stage disease or recurrent cancer – will be enrolled to have the jab alongside immunotherapy.
The vaccine uses messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to COVID-19 vaccines, presenting the immune system with tumour markers from NSCLC to prime the body to fight cancer cells expressing these markers. The aim is to strengthen a person’s immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched.
With more than 43,000 cases of lung cancer diagnosed in the UK every year, Professor Lee said he hopes ‘adding this additional treatment will stop the cancer coming back because a lot of time for lung cancer patients, even after surgery and radiation, it does come back’.
Science minister Lord Vallance commended the launch of the trials. ‘It is good to see this vaccine taking its next important step. We back our researchers so that they continue to be an integral part of projects that produce groundbreaking therapies, like this one.’