thebiostories

The Personalized Cancer Vaccine That Just Succeeded in Phase 3 One Patient at a Time: How Merck and Moderna turned a patient’s own tumour mutations into an individualized mRNA therapy — and took it through a successful Phase 3 trial. ⏱ In 30 Seconds ✓ Intismeran autogene is made individually from mutations identified in each patient’s tumour. ✓ Its mRNA can encode up to 34 patient-specific neoantigens to help generate tumour-specific T-cell responses. ✓ Combined with pembrolizumab (Keytruda), it has now met the primary endpoint in a large Phase 3 melanoma trial . ✓ The full Phase 3 effect size and overall-survival results have not yet been reported. The trial was designed to follow patients for years, but on August 19, 2026, Merck and Moderna announced that a prespecified interim analysis had already provided an important answer. Their individualized mRNA cancer treatment, intismeran autogene , combined with pembrolizumab (Keytruda), had met the primary endpo...

What Is the Most Common Virus That Causes Cancer? HPV causes more cancers worldwide than any other virus — but it is only one of several infections capable of contributing to human cancer. Cancer is usually thought of as a disease of damaged genes. But sometimes the chain of events that leads to cancer begins with something entirely different: an infection. Most familiar viral infections are not associated with cancer. The viruses that cause the common cold, influenza viruses and coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2 are not established cancer-causing viruses. But a small group of viruses can, under the right circumstances and often over many years, contribute to the development of cancer. Among them, HPV is responsible for the largest number of cancer cases worldwide. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), almost 750,000 new cancer cases worldwide in 2020 were attributable to HPV infection. HPV is not alone. Hepatitis B and C viruses can cause li...