Doctors begin patient testing of world’s first mRNA-based lung cancer vaccine, with experts hailing its potential “revolutionary” to save thousands of lives.
Scientist Janusz Racz, 67, the first to receive a dose of the vaccine PHOTO: X/ Tushar Sayankar
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the world, responsible for approximately 1.8 million deaths each year. Survival rates for those with advanced forms of the disease, when the tumors have spread, are particularly low.
Experts are currently testing a new injection that instructs the body to hunt down and kill cancer cells – then prevent them from coming back. Known as BNT116 and manufactured by BioNTech, the vaccine is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease, writes theguardian.com.
The Phase 1 clinical trial, the first human trial of BNT116, was launched in 34 research centers in seven countries: UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey.
There are six centers in the UK, located in England and Wales, with the first British patient to receive the vaccine receiving the initial dose on Tuesday.
In total, about 130 patients — from early stages, before surgery or radiation therapy, to advanced disease or recurrent cancer — will be enrolled to receive the vaccine along with immunotherapy. Around 20 will be from the UK.
The injection uses messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to Covid-19 vaccines, and works by presenting the immune system with tumor markers from NSCLC to stimulate the body to fight cancer cells that express these markers.
The goal is to strengthen a person’s immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy.
“We are now entering this very exciting new era of mRNA-based immunotherapy clinical trials to investigate the treatment of lung cancer,” said Professor Siow Ming Lee, consultant medical oncologist at University College London hospitals NHS foundation trust (UCLH), who is leading the study in the UK.
“It’s simple to administer and you can select specific antigens in the cancer cell and then target them. This technology is the next big phase of cancer treatment.”
Janusz Racz, 67, from London, was the first person to receive the vaccine in the UK. He was diagnosed in May and shortly thereafter began chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
The AI scientist said his profession inspired him to take part in the study. “I’m a scientist myself, and I understand that the progress of science – especially in medicine – lies in the fact that people agree to be involved in such investigations.” he said.
He added: “It would be very beneficial for me because it is a new methodology that is not available to other patients and can help me get rid of cancer. And I can also be part of the team that can provide the proof of concept for this new methodology, and the faster it is implemented around the world, the more people will be saved.”
Racz received six consecutive injections five minutes apart over 30 minutes at the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Clinical Research Facility on Tuesday.
Each injection contained different strands of RNA. He will receive the vaccine every week for six consecutive weeks and then every three weeks for 54 weeks.
Lee stated: “We hope that adding this additional treatment will stop the cancer coming back, because often in lung cancer patients, even after surgery and radiotherapy, it comes back.”
He added: “I have been in lung cancer research for 40 years. When I started in the 1990s, nobody believed that chemotherapy worked. We now know that about 20-30% (of patients) stay alive with stage 4 with immunotherapy and now we want to improve survival rates. So we’re hoping that this mRNA vaccine, on top of immunotherapy, could provide an additional boost. We’re hoping to move to phase 2, phase 3, and then hopefully it’ll become the standard of care worldwide and save a lot of lung cancer patients.”
The Guardian revealed in May that thousands of patients in England were to be rushed into breakthrough cancer vaccine trials as part of a breakthrough scheme to “match” of the NHS, in a world first, to save lives.
Under this program, patients who meet eligibility criteria will have access to clinical trials for vaccines that experts say represent a breakthrough in cancer treatment.
Lord Vallance, the science minister, welcomed the launch of the lung cancer vaccine trial. “This approach has the potential to save the lives of thousands of people diagnosed with lung cancer each year.” he said. “We support our researchers to continue to be an integral part of projects that produce breakthrough therapies like this.”
Racz hopes that once his treatment is over, he will be able to return to running and fulfill his lifelong ambition: to complete the London Marathon.
