First Patient Injected With Cancer Vaccine in Phase II Trial – Futurism

The pharmaceutical company BioNTech has officially begun injecting participants with an experimental cancer vaccine in a new phase II clinical trial.

Preclinical and earlier clinical data showed that the vaccine is safe enough to progress along the clinical research pipeline, according to Clinical Trials Arena. So now, BioNTech plans to measure how well the vaccine, in concert with the medication Libtayo, works as a treatment for severe cases of skin cancer and thats a big deal, because the hopeis that it will be able to treat patients who would have previously been considered terminal.

Just like the COVID-19 vaccine that BioNTech developed in collaboration with Pfizer, the experimental cancer vaccine relies on mRNA technology to teach a patients immune system how to fight off cancer. But there are some key differences between testing a vaccine for cancer and a highly-infectious virus.

Namely, it wouldnt make sense to test a vaccine on healthy patients and then wait around to see if they happen to eventually develop severe cancer. Rather, BioNTech is recruiting existing patients with stage three or four melanoma and then tracking their progress after theyre inoculated.

Our vision is to harness the power of the immune system against cancer and infectious diseases, BioNTech cofounder zlem Treci said in a press release. We were able to demonstrate the potential of mRNA vaccines in addressing COVID-19. We must not forget, that cancer is also a global health threat, even worse than the current pandemic.

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First Patient Injected With Cancer Vaccine in Phase II Trial - Futurism