Cancer vaccines in the coming years are full of optimism, and mRNA cancer vaccines are expected to be available before 2030

On October 18, the topic of "cancer vaccine is about to come out" appeared on Weibo hot search, causing heated discussions
.
According to foreign media reports, the founder of the German biotechnology company BioNTech said that mRNA new crown vaccine technology can be used to help destroy cancer cells, and the vaccine may be available
before 2030.

Due to its high morbidity, high mortality and low cure rate, most people will inevitably "talk about cancer discoloration"
.
For this news, some netizens equated it with cancer prevention, and initiated a topic discussion: If there is really this vaccine, a shot of 200,000 yuan will protect you from cancer for 20 years, will you fight?

Many netizens replied under it: "There will be no different vaccines for different parts of cancer", "Although 200,000 is not cheap for my working child, I am willing to give my mother an injection first"
.

Some researchers in the biomedical industry explained to Jingwei that the cancer vaccine here is different from the HPV vaccine and has no preventive function and can only be used for treatment
.
The principle is that some cancers have cell mutations, and vaccines can induce an immune response to help the body's immune system recognize the existence of different cells
.

At the same time, Jingwei found that tumor vaccines have been a research hotspot in the world in recent years, and products have been released
.

Breakthroughs in mRNA tumors

According to public information, BioNTech is a German biotechnology company, whose main business is to develop and produce effective immunotherapies
for the treatment of serious diseases for specific patients.

During the epidemic, BioNTech and Moderna's mRNA new crown vaccines were approved by the US Medical Products Administration and FDA for emergency use authorization, directly promoting mRNA vaccines to become a global hot spot, and mRNA vaccines
were at the top of the 2021 MIT Technology Review list of "Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies in the World".

Since then, many pharmaceutical companies have entered the market, hoping to expand the indication range of mRNA vaccines to other infectious diseases, tumors and other fields
.

When asked by foreign media when mRNA cancer vaccines can be used in cancer patients, Wu Shaxin, founder and CEO of BioNTech, said that based on the breakthroughs that BioNTech has made in the field of mRNA cancer vaccines, he is full of optimism about cancer vaccines in the next few years, and mRNA cancer vaccines are expected to be marketed before 2030
.

But BioNTech co-founder and CMO Ozlem Toure said that as a scientist, you can't easily say that you can't "cure" cancer, but many breakthroughs
have been made.

mRNA vaccines actively broaden multiple indications

From the perspective of research and development status, mRNA vaccines have been widely tried to be used in the treatment of various types of tumors
, including prostate cancer, acute myeloleukemia, metastatic melanoma, neuroblastoma and so on.

BioNTech and Moderna are both developing mRNA vaccines
for different indications for cancer.

According to BioNTech, it has more than 30 product pipelines, about 15 related to tumor, and it is developing treatments
for rectal cancer, melanoma and other cancer types.

WuXi AppTec's team said in the BioNTech pipeline statistics that BNT111 and BNT113 products for advanced melanoma and HPV16-positive head and neck cancer have entered clinical phase II, and the personalized tumor vaccine BNT122 for patient-derived specific antigens has also entered clinical phase
I and II.

Moderna is also in a
race.
According to media reports, in mid-October, Moderna announced that it would cooperate with international pharmaceutical company Merck to jointly develop and sell a personalized precision therapy cancer vaccine, promoting the combination of Moderna's mRNA technology and Merck's PD-1 tumor therapy Keytruda (K drug) to explore the treatment of high-risk melanoma patients
.
Under the agreement, Merck will pay $250 million
to Moderna.

WuXi AppTec said that Moderna's current product line has more than 45, and about 5 are related to tumors
.
Among them, there is a personalized tumor vaccine, mRNA-4157, which can hold up to 34 mRNA sequences encoding neoantigens, targeting multiple cancer species, with a disease control rate of 90% in clinical phase I, and is currently undergoing clinical phase II trials
.

Jingwei noted that there are also companies in China that are conducting research and development
of mRNA tumor vaccines.
According to public information, S&S's microbial product pipeline SM-Neo-Vac-1 is a neoantigen individualized mRNA vaccine for patients with advanced digestive system tumors, in addition, S&B has also said that it will conduct clinical research applications
for gastrointestinal tumors, lung tumors, and melanoma related products in 2020.

A number of oncology vaccines have been marketed

As a new treatment mode after tumor chemotherapy, radiotherapy, cell and immunotherapy, tumor vaccines are a hot spot
in research and development in recent years.
In terms of general classification, tumor vaccines can be divided into preventive tumor vaccines and therapeutic tumor vaccines
.
Among them, the most typical and well-known preventive tumor vaccine is HPV vaccine, which prevents the occurrence
of cervical cancer.

The mRNA tumor vaccine discussed this time is a therapeutic vaccine, although the mRNA tumor vaccine has not yet been marketed, but other therapeutic tumor vaccines have been listed
.

As early as 2010, the cancer vaccine Provenge was approved by the US FDA for cancer immunotherapy with indications for asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer
.
The vaccine is developed by Danray Biologics, which has extended the survival of patients with advanced cancer by four months
.

However, according to public information, due to the high production cost of the vaccine, coupled with the lack of efficacy as many inhibitors on the market since then, the sales of the vaccine are not optimistic
.
In 2017, Danrui was wholly acquired
by China Sanpower Group.

Internationally, according to an article published in China Pharmaceutical in November 2021 by researchers from the Institute of Medical Information of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, 16 therapeutic tumor vaccine products have been launched
worldwide.
Indications extend from bladder tumors, melanoma, to other solid tumors, including renal cell tumors, lung cancer, prostate cancer, etc
.
From the perspective of products entering phase III clinical trials, the indications for tumor vaccines have been further extended to digestive system tumors, urinary system tumors, reproductive system tumors, etc
.

However, the article also suggests that the number of products that are on the market for the first time or enter the phase III clinical trial phase worldwide has gradually increased
over time.
It takes an average of more than 10 years for a new drug or biological product to enter the market from the initial start of research and development, of which 6~7 years
are required for the clinical trial stage alone.
Research in the field of tumor vaccines started late, and only a few products have been successfully launched, and most of the products are still in clinical trials
.
In recent years, the number of products entering phase III clinical trials has increased significantly, and it is estimated that more tumor vaccine products will be successfully launched
in the next 5~10 years.

From the domestic situation, on October 9, the official website of the Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) of the National Medical Products Administration issued the "Technical Guidelines for Clinical Trials of Tumor Therapeutic Vaccines (Draft for Comments)" to further standardize and guide the clinical development of tumor therapeutic vaccine drugs and provide technical specifications
for reference.

Finally, Zhongxin Jingwei checked the public information and found that tumor vaccines are not "miracle drugs", and the "one shot to remove cancer cells" imagined by netizens is currently unrealized
.
Therapeutic vaccines are biological products that need to be used in combination with other immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T, etc.
to improve the effectiveness of
vaccines.