(Reporter Tan Qixin of People's Daily Health Client) "Can cancer vaccine really cure cancer?" "Can any cancer cell be destroyed?"...On October 18, "cancer vaccine" became a hot search on social platforms. What attracted netizens' attention and heated discussion this time was an interview with the co-founder of the German biotech company BioNTech on "cancer vaccine is about to come out".
On October 16th local time, according to the British " Guardian ", the founder of the German biotech company BioNTech said in an interview with the BBC (BBC) that a breakthrough has been made in the research on cancer vaccines based on the mRNA vaccine technology route, which makes them optimistic about the launch of cancer vaccines in the next few years. "mRNA cancer vaccine has hope of being released by 2030. It will cure cancer and change the lives of cancer patients." said Ugur Sahin, co-founder of German biotechnology company BioNTech.
sample vial of BioNTech cancer vaccine product under development. AFP Photo
On October 16th local time, the founder of German Biotechnology Company is being interviewed by the BBC. Screenshot of the interview video
We are not unfamiliar with mRNA vaccines, but what is the prospect of cancer vaccines developed using the mRNA technology route?
"Cancer vaccine is considered to be one of the potential cancer immunotherapy, and mRNA is one of the five main technical routes for cancer vaccine development. Cancer vaccines are preventive and therapeutic. The cancer vaccines that are well-known are preventive vaccines, such as HPV vaccine for preventing cervical cancer . The therapeutic cancer vaccine that has attracted attention in recent years is to focus the strength of the human immune system on eliminating tumor cells and achieving the goal of curing cancer." Ma Jun, director of the Harbin Hematology and Oncology Research Institute, who has been paying attention to new progress in cancer clinical treatment, told the People's Daily Health Client reporter.
Ma Jun mentioned that research on therapeutic cancer vaccines is relatively slow, and most are still in the preclinical research or phase I clinical research stage, a large part of which is due to the diversity of cancer cell antigens and tumor immune escape mechanism and tumor heterogeneity.
" As of now, no therapeutic cancer vaccines have been approved for marketing around the world, but major biotechnology companies are planning related research, among which mRNA is indeed one of the promising technical routes for developing tumor vaccines. " A relevant person in charge of a listed biopharmaceutical company who did not want to be named told the People's Daily Health Client reporter that in his opinion, because the cancer cells that make up the tumor may contain many different proteins, it is not easy to develop cancer vaccines targeting all cancer cells but not healthy tissues, and it is too early to talk about conquering cancer.
public information shows that in addition to BioNTech, American vaccine research and development giant Moderna is also planning to develop cancer new antigen vaccines. On October 13, Moderna announced the joint development and sale of a personalized and precise cancer vaccine (PCV) mRNA-4157/V940 with Merck . This vaccine is based on Moderna's mRNA technology and is used in conjunction with Merck's celebrity tumor therapy Keytruda (K drug), to explore the treatment of high-risk melanoma patients. Currently, the program is in Phase II of clinical trials, with a total of 157 subjects recruited.
In Ma Jun's view, we can expect that the therapeutic cancer vaccine will be officially approved for marketing worldwide by 2030. However, it is still a huge unknown whether the cancer vaccine can completely cure cancer. "Because the cancer vaccine has been studied for nearly 50 years, but it cannot cure cancer so far. In theory, cancer vaccines can indeed enhance the killing effect of immune cells , but generally need to be used in combination with other treatment methods." Ma Jun said.
