Moderna, Merck Phase III win opens door to personalized neoantigen vaccines

Moderna and Merck have delivered the first Phase III win for a personalized neoantigen vaccine, giving Moderna its strongest evidence yet that mRNA can succeed beyond infectious disease. Whether the therapy can achieve widespread commercial uptake will prove whether this is a true turning point for the company and new option for cancer patients.

In the Phase III INTerpath-001 trial, adjuvant treatment with intismeran autogene plus Keytruda pembrolizumab met the primary recurrence-free survival (RFS) endpoint at an interim analysis in patients with completely resected stage IIB-IV melanoma. The combination also met a key secondary endpoint of distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS)...