A Personalized Cancer Vaccine Lowers Melanoma Recurrence by 42%

Health Follow this section to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. FollowGo to your personalized feedWHY FOLLOW? Custom Feed: stories that matter most to you. Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Update your preferences in Account Settings Close Cancer Follow this tag to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. FollowGo to your personalized feedWHY FOLLOW? Custom Feed: stories that matter most to you. Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Update your preferences in Account Settings Close A Personalized Cancer Vaccine Lowers Melanoma Recurrence by 42% ADD TIME ON GOOGLE . FollowGo to your personalized feedWHY FOLLOW? Custom Feed: stories that matter most to you. Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Update your preferences in Account Settings Close Senior Correspondent Oct 22, 2026 PM UTC Micrograph of melanoma cancer cells Micrograph of melanoma cancer cellsPansLaos— . FollowGo to your personalized feedWHY FOLLOW? Custom Feed: stories that matter most to you. Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Update your preferences in Account Settings Close Senior Correspondent Oct 22, 2026 PM UTC 00:001.0x03:48 Narrated . Moderna and Merck reported on Oct. 22 that a customized cancer vaccine for people with late-stage melanoma can reduce the risk of cancer recurrence or death over two years by 42% compared to current treatment. The results will be presented at the European Society of Medical Oncology meeting in Madrid on Oct. 24. The study involved more than 1,130 people with Stage 2B to Stage 4 melanoma, all of whom had their tumors surgically removed. Some were then randomly assigned to have a cancer vaccine custom-made after their tumors had been genetically sequenced. They received that vaccine, called intismeran, once every three weeks for up to nine doses, along with Keytruda, a checkpoint inhibitor, every six weeks for up to nine cycles, for about a year. Others were randomly assigned to receive a placebo vaccine and Keytruda. Intismeran, developed jointly , represents a new way to harness the immune system in cancer, 34 specific proteins on tumor cells. The mRNA coding for these proteins, or antigens, are encased in a lipid particle in a similar way to Moderna’s COVID vaccine, which used mRNA from the COVID virus’ spike protein. Using this mRNA approach, once cells start making the foreign proteins coded for , the immune system sees them as intruders and mounts a response against them—and the latest data show that the approach works not just against viral proteins but also against those found on tumors.