CLINICAL trial results for a new melanoma vaccine are promising, but UNSW Sydney experts said key questions still need to be answered.
Last year, Moderna and Merck reported on a mRNA-based vaccine for melanoma, labelled in the media as 'the penicillin moment' for cancer treatment.
Initial results from their KEYNOTE-942 clinical trial show that the vaccine, developed by Moderna, significantly reduced the risk of cancer recurrence or death for melanoma patients.
"Melanoma vaccines have been worked on for decades, albeit with little efficacy," said Prof Anthony Joshua, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, and UNSW Medicine & Health.
"This is one of the first that has shown promising enough results to proceed to a larger definitive study.
"It's certainly exciting...but these are early results, and the trial is quite small, and this concept needs to be tested further.
"It's important to see how and if the vaccine did indeed generate an immune response against the tumour and how long it lasts," Prof Joshua said.
This year, Moderna and Merck plan to submit the full results from KEYNOTE-942 for peer review.
They also plan to initiate a Phase 3 clinical trial.
Dr John Frew from Liverpool Hospital and UNSW Medicine & Health enthused that "it is an excellent step in the right direction using new personalised medicine technology, which has come to us as a silver lining out of the COVID-19 pandemic and experience with mRNA vaccines.
"It certainly opens up new doors to novel therapeutics and adjuvant therapies - but it is as yet unclear whether this is a true 'penicillin moment'," Dr Frew concluded.
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