Moderna / Merck - ASCO presentation is being reported around the world with Professor Georgina Long giving news interviews.
Melanoma vaccine and immunotherapy trial results reveal significant promise in cancer fight
New research has found the world’s first personalised mRNA cancer vaccine for melanoma can significantly reduce the risk of patients dying or the disease returning. Results from a second trial involving potential changes to the way immunotherapy is used has also been revealed.
Results of a trial using mRNA technology, similar to that used in Covid vaccines, to fight Melanoma have been presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting.
A huge challenge Down Under, in New Zealand more than 6,000 melanomas are diagnosed each year, with 300 people dying annually from the disease, according to Melanoma New Zealand. In Australia, 16,800 Australians are diagnosed and it is estimated 1300 Australians will die this year, according to Melanoma Institute Australia.
Revealing the results, pharmaceutical company Moderna and partner company Merck & Co said their cancer vaccine used in combination with blockbuster cancer therapy Keytruda improved survival and showed durable efficacy in a mid-stage study in patients with a deadly form of skin cancer.
Detailed data from the 157-patient trial showed that after two and a half years, melanoma patients that had received the cancer vaccine combination showed an overall survival rate of 96%, compared with 90.2% with Keytruda alone.
About 75% of the patients on the vaccine combination had recurrence-free survival, compared with 55.6% on Keytruda alone.
The latest data offered more evidence of the vaccine’s durability, after a December report that showed a 49% reduction in the risk of recurrence or death among patients who were on the vaccine combination versus Keytruda alone, with a median follow-up of nearly three years.
The collaboration is one of the several in the industry that are combining powerful drugs to use the immune system for targeting cancer with the mRNA vaccine technology, which carries instructions for cells to make specific proteins.
Second trial a “cancer treatment revolution”
Another treatment development released at the annual cancer conference revealed the impressive results of a trial lead by joint Australian of the Year Professor Georgina Long.
In what has been described as a “cancer treatment revolution”, the pre-surgery use of combination immunotherapy could become standard treatment for melanoma and impact other cancers across the globe.
‘The trial results are transformative for not only the treatment of melanoma, but they set the stage and benchmark for other cancers,’ said Melanoma Institute Australia Co-Medical Director Professor Georgina Long AO, who co-led the NADINA trial with her colleague Prof Christian Blank from The Netherlands Cancer Institute.
Results from the Phase 3 NADINA Clinical Trial were released at the conference and published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.
The NADINA trial was the first phase 3 trial in oncology evaluating a neoadjuvant regimen consisting of only immunotherapy. It compared neoadjuvant (pre-surgery) treatment with combination immunotherapy (ipilimumab and nivolumab) to the current standard adjuvant (post-surgery) approach with single agent immunotherapy (nivolumab).
“By showing a significant decrease in the rate of recurrence and death due to melanoma for high-risk Stage III melanoma patients by using combination checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy before rather than after surgery, we now have the clinical proof needed to change treatment protocols,” said Prof Christian Blank.
‘This phase III trial is the first of its kind and is one of the single biggest developments, not only in melanoma, but the whole cancer field,’ Prof Long added. ‘Our next step is to refine who gets what immunotherapy before surgery, as some patients will need combination and others will not,’ she said.
The international trial led by MIA’s Prof Georgina Long and NKI’s Prof Christian Blank was opened across the globe including in Europe, Australia and USA. Melanoma Institute Australia opened the trial across 8 Australian centres including MIA, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Westmead Hospital, The Alfred, Tasman Health Care, Lake Macquarie Hospital, Fiona Stanley Hospital and Princess Alexandra Hospital.
Between August 2021 and December 2023, 423 patients were recruited for the trial and randomized to the neoadjuvant arm (212) and the adjuvant arm (211). Australian patients made up a third of all those recruited globally for the trial.
Results showed estimated 12 month event-free survival (EFS) rates of 83.7% in the neoadjuvant arm vs 57.2% in the adjuvant arm.
(20min delay)