The COVID-19 pandemic has brought vaccines back into the drug development spotlight, and mRNA vaccines are stealing the show with sales of USD 54.4 billion in 2021 alone. Few know that the developers of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines actually drew upon years of experience attempting to develop cancer vaccines. This approach goes back several decades, and although the field has to date seen limited success, it has nevertheless witnessed a renewed interests in recent years. We examine the latest trends in cancer vaccine development, and where the opportunities lie for the future of the industry.
Before receiving attention for its successful Sars-CoV-2 vaccine Comirnaty, the well-known German mRNA-focused firm BioNTech was a company dedicated to cancer vaccines. The significant revenues from Comirnaty are now actively being funneled back into this pipeline, to advance the company’s cancer vaccine programs (which now boast ten clinical-stage assets, spanning four Phase II programs and eight Phase I programs). On the other side of the pond, the other famed mRNA company Moderna is also making news in the oncology space, with the announcement in October 2022 that Merck agreed to exercise its USD 250 million option to co-develop and co-commercialize a personalized cancer vaccine with the company.
Boosting cancer treatments
The promise of cancer vaccines lies in their ability to not only treat extant tumors, but to train our own immune systems to recognize and eradicate cancerous cells before tumor establishment. Despite the failures of more than 150 clinical programs in the past decades, and less than 10 approved cancer vaccine products, the field has kept evolving and learning from its past. Aided by recent breakthroughs – including new scientific insights in immuno-oncology; technological advances, like state-of-the-art genetic screening and AI-prediction; and new modalities, such as mRNA and DNA technology – the field is poised for a comeback.
“The promise of cancer vaccines lies in their ability to not only treat extant tumors, but to train our own immune systems to recognize and eradicate cancerous cells before tumor establishment.” – Ethan Kuo
For the last few decades, cancer vaccine development has primarily focused on products acting as secondary immuno-oncology therapies to treat tumors not well-served by current treatments, either on their own or in combination with other cancer therapies. Most of BioNTech’s clinical pipeline of therapeutic cancer vaccines exemplifies this focus: vaccines combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors or adjuvants to help break through the natural resistance tumors have to immune attacks. In this format, cancer vaccines are however in direct competition with other (combinatorial) immuno-oncology therapies, both established and experimental, and the vaccines can at best be viewed as add-ons to checkpoint inhibitors.
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Bron: Kuo E. (2022, 23 november). ‘Cancer vaccines: not only treating tumors, but preventing them too’, biovox.eu. Geraadpleegd van https://bit.ly/3FbMd4n.