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Medicine

World-First Lung Cancer Vaccine Trials Launched Across Seven Countries (theguardian.com) 52

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Doctors have begun trialling the world's first mRNA lung cancer vaccine in patients, as experts hailed its "groundbreaking" potential to save thousands of lives. From a report: Lung cancer is the world's leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor. Now experts are testing a new jab that instructs the body to hunt down and kill cancer cells -- then prevents them ever coming back. Known as BNT116 and made by BioNTech, the vaccine is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease.

The phase 1 clinical trial, the first human study of BNT116, has launched across 34 research sites in seven countries: the UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey. The UK has six sites, located in England and Wales, with the first UK patient to receive the vaccine having their initial dose on Tuesday. Overall, about 130 patients -- from early-stage before surgery or radiotherapy, to late-stage disease or recurrent cancer -- will be enrolled to have the jab alongside immunotherapy. About 20 will be from the UK. The jab uses messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to Covid-19 vaccines, and works by presenting the immune system with tumour markers from NSCLC to prime the body to fight cancer cells expressing these markers. The aim is to strengthen a person's immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy.
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World-First Lung Cancer Vaccine Trials Launched Across Seven Countries More

World-First Lung Cancer Vaccine Trials Launched Across Seven Countries

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  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @03:13PM (#64730032)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • My issue with cigarettes is the high vs damage is so out of whack compared to much better drugs. If you are gonna kill your self, you should really, really enjoy it.
    • Yes, you should be commended for stopping, its very hard. But that shouldn't rain on the potentially transformative treatment for cancer. That's also good. There are forms of lung cancer that are not caused by smoking. Risk reduction is great, the preferred way of avoiding cancer no doubt. But its nice to have an additional treatment in our bag of tricks for those who weren't able to do enough, weather it was genetics, environmental factors due to their choices or not.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )
          Jesus dude. $300/month on pot? How? (Not judging, I've been known to partake. But, I barely spent $300 in a year, lol.)
          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Pascoea ( 968200 )
              Yeah, I'm way more of a lightweight, and it's a relatively new thing for me. I've still got a fair amount left of a half that I've been working on for a few months now. But damn, has my sleep improved. Stupid back problems.
          • A zip of top shelf costs about 120-180 out here. Most folks who smoke daily learn to keep their use small enough to do whatever they need (help them eat or sleep usually). So, if you are a big guy, an enthusiastic stoner, a connoisseur, or have an especially strong tolerance you could spend $300 by buying around two ounces a month.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Pascoea ( 968200 )
              I guess I'm a lightweight, lol. I'm still working through the half I was given this spring. (Fuckin Minnesota. We're still not legally allowed to buy/sell flower, but you can grow/gift a basically infinite supply.)
              • Damn. Sounds like a good place to be a guerrilla grower. In a theoretical fantasy I used to be a big grower, myself. In this fantasy, I bought a couple of cars off all the weed I sold before it was legal in Colorado. In my dream, I'd clone a mother plant with decent phenotypes that I liked using a 100-position aero-cloner and a bottle of rooting hormone. Then I'd take the clones out and plant them on national forest lands near but not too near some small rills and creeks. I'd mark those on the GPS then come

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by Pascoea ( 968200 )
                  Ha, when I say "near infinite supply" it's more like I can grow more than I'd ever consume in a year. Legally I'm allowed to have four plants. Two mature, and two juvenile. And I'm allowed to have like TWO POUNDS of bud in my house, and something like two ounces in my possession in public. For me, that's an absurd amount, lol.

          • $300/mo is pretty similar for my wife and best friend.

            My wife picks up stuff for me and I have to tell her to stop because some of the stuff I have is several months old because it takes me way longer to work through it. Literally a $36 bottle of 14 prerolls will last me a few months (14 weeks I guess?). It's a habit that costs me less than Reese's cups.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rossdee ( 243626 )

        Is this vaccine going to be given to families of smokers too?

        • >"Is this vaccine going to be given to families of smokers too?"

          Calling it a "vaccine", especially at this stage, is probably a mistake. It seems clearly indicated as a treatment for cancer, not a preventative. I suppose it could be used as a preventative, but that seems like an expensive and risky thing to do, unless it is for someone who is already at very high risk (like an active/regular/high-consumption cigarette/cannabis smoker). I don't think typical SHS exposure is high enough of a risk to be

          • Re:I've already acted to prevent lung cancer. (Score:4, Interesting)

            by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @05:41PM (#64730496) Journal

            Well, I think there's two related definitions of "vaccine" these days - the one that is commonly (and incompletely) known to be a preventative for infectious disease; and the technical definition per the CDC [cdc.gov] is "a preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases" - where "diseases" could definitely include cancers.

            mRNA vaccine tech allows us to teach our immune system to attack virus proteins, or cancer proteins (apparently). Thus, we might just need to evolve the colloquial definition of "vaccine" to closer approach the scientific definition.

    • If you've been smoking for a long time prior to quitting I'd be more surprised if the vaccine wasn't indicated as beneficial for you.

    • I quit smoking last December. I'll bet I've done more to reduce my chances of lung cancer than this vaccine can.

      I'm still dying for a smoke. I wonder when that'll end?

      13 years and counting here. Still get cravings from time to time.
      Was in a store recently and happened to notice the person in front of me buying cigarettes. The price shocked me, and and pretty much guarantees I will never start again.

      • Was in a store recently and happened to notice the person in front of me buying cigarettes. The price shocked me, and and pretty much guarantees I will never start again.

        When my father had been quit for about 10 years I told him that I KNEW he would never smoke again because the heart attack he would have on seeing the current prices would kill him. He lived about 25 years after quitting (till 85).

    • I haven't had a cigarette in 16 years. I don't remember how long it was before I was no longer dying for a smoke, but I still occasionally get quite powerful cravings.

    • Bully for you. Seriously.

      However, the National Institutes of Health [nih.gov] estimates about 6% of global lung cancer incidence is from air pollution alone.

      You can't quit air. Well, you can, but it will be less survivable than the lung cancer.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        But you can relocate to areas with less air pollution if you're concerned about such things.

        • New Zealand immigration was just a bit too hard to get past, so I wear an N95 mask and have a filter running at home at night. But people think I've got covid, which can be a bit damaging to business.

          The thunderstorm gen kit is retrofittable to combustion engines. I'd prefer to see that used and keep fitting scubbers to coal fired power plants.

        • The people living there are the people with the least resources with which to do so. That's why they live there to begin with.

          Come on, at least try a little.

    • I quit smoking last December. I'll bet I've done more to reduce my chances of lung cancer than this vaccine can.

      I'm still dying for a smoke. I wonder when that'll end?

      Rhetorical question? If not, then I got news for you. It might never go away completely. That being said, it gets easier all the time. For me, the cravings came in waves. That's after the first couple weeks. For most people, those first days there are little to no "waves", it's constant.

      Over time they the cravings should become less intense & less frequent. Stay the fuck away from smoking people. Good luck, it's worth the pain.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      This vaccine works differently than the ones you're used to. It doesn't *prevent* developing cancer the way the measles vaccine prevents getting infected with measles. You get the vaccine *after* you've developed cancer, and it targets your immune system at abnormal proteins that are found on the surface of cancer cells.

      This will not only shrink the tumor like other anti-cancer drugs, if successful it will also treat and prevent metastasis -- cells from the tumor migrating into other tissues -- which is

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by flink ( 18449 )

      I quit cold turkey 13 years ago. The answer so far, is never.

  • It would be the first actually good therapy for cancer.

    • I had a long thread criticizing medical "science" (they don't really deserve the term after CV19, but you know who I mean) for making too slow progress and especially with cancer. I did some research on how much progress we can really cite as legit on the really effective treatments. Out of over 200 types of cancer, only a handful, such as testicular cancer, certain leukemias, and some lymphomas, have consistently effective treatments with high cure rates. There are also a small number of decent prophylacti

      • Re:Let's hope this works (Score:5, Insightful)

        by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @05:49PM (#64730510) Journal

        You think you want less regulation in health care, but you really, REALLY do not.

        Imagine the unregulated excesses of the tech industry applied to health care and pharmaceutical development. "Move fast and break things" would mean far less safe drugs being sold with unbelievable dishonesty and corner-cutting. I mean, do you want to learn about an Crowdstrike-style "oopsie" on a medication you're taking?

        The regulation is why we have such effective treatments with low incidence of serious side effects or complications - researchers are highly encouraged to get them as narrowly targeted and safe as possible, while also discovering side effects and knowing the probability of incidence in order to get the treatment approved.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          The answer is dual track. For those who can't afford it, want to try the experimental stuff, or in some cases because there's no other treatment option, let them get treatment from an unregulated source. For everyone else, there's the regulated system.

          Of course, unregulated providers will make mistakes that regulated medical care won't, and people will die. But not letting those people get treatment kills even more people.

        • Yeah yeah, Big Government is here to save us all from the evil corporations. I've heard this story before. The problem is that Big Government and the Evil Corporations are basically the same thing, now. You're going to need a better narrative.

      • My critique still stands, though. Medicine is a field full of authoritarian hacks who already don't make much progress, but add in the FDA and Big Government and you've got even less progress.

        You are missing the true reason. Big pharma makes more money off of treatments you need daily for the rest of your life than from a vaccine or quick cure that leaves you immune.

  • This is a Fantastic Development/Test (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GFS666 ( 6452674 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @04:02PM (#64730246)

    mRNA Cancer vaccines have the potential of completely changing the cancer treatment dynamic and I'm very glad that they are starting trials. The mRNA technology is also being used in a trial to help kill remaining cancer cells not initially killed by regular cancer treatments (Link here: https://www.theguardian.com/sc... [theguardian.com] ) thereby possibly improving the overall survival rate.

    What I am curious about is that most of these trials appear to be European/UK based with no US trials that I can see. I'm honestly curious as to the reason for this if anyone knows.

    • Biotech companies (most of which seem to work on cancer treatments/vaccines/cures/detection) go in and out of business in US all the time (https://biopharmguy.com/links/company-by-name-defunct.php). Startup>get capital>live large>fail miserably>go bankrupt. Sometimes last 2 steps are: get at least something useful out of your research > get bought by big pharma to cut some of the losses. But result is the same, cancer is still there and killing, but that's incremental progress for ya (maybe s

    • I'm curious about that, too. I wonder if all the political authortarianism they engaged in during the pandemic set back mRNA vaccine tech to the point people might be afraid to touch it. Despite Pfizer making just about the weakest thing I've ever seen called "vaccine", I'm still hopeful that mRNA might actually do some good elsewhere (Flu or Cancer cures _welcome_). I'd point out that the political decisions during the pandemic have now made it harder to be an mRNA researcher and despite someone surely re

    • What I am curious about is that most of these trials appear to be European/UK based with no US trials that I can see. I'm honestly curious as to the reason for this if anyone knows.

      BioNTech is a German company but they do sell vaccines in the USA. They got approved to sell a new COVID vaccine in the USA very recently. I'm guessing that the FDA is dragging their feet on approving trials, as they often do, because "people might die" if they have a bad reaction to the vaccine. Well, people are certainly going to die, at least some of them, if their lung cancer doesn't respond well to available US treatments, but stuff like that has never swayed the FDA in the past. They probably wi

    • Re:This is a Fantastic Development/Test (Score:5, Interesting)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @05:16PM (#64730452)

      What I am curious about is that most of these trials appear to be European/UK based with no US trials that I can see. I'm honestly curious as to the reason for this if anyone knows.

      These trials are being pushed by BioNTech who are probably at the forefront of all mRNA research. You may not remember them from the COVID days but they developed the Comirnaty vaccine. The reason you don't hear of that is clinical trials were pushed in multiple countries and prominently it was Pfizer that BioNTech partnered with in the USA for trial and manufacture so the media called it the Pfizer vaccine, despite being developed by BioNTech - a German company.

      Despite what the pro-private anti-regulation crowd say there is actual serious drug development ongoing outside of the USA. It makes sense to start in your home market, and while Brexit did stress EU relationships, existing relationships don't give a shit about politics - the NHS has always worked closely with the German medical industry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        When it comes to working within a health care system the NHS is the 10,000 lb gorilla in the room. You just need to look at the RECOVERY and PANORAMIC trials during COVID-19 and compare and contrast with the Solidarity trial. There are very few if any other western level health care systems that could have delivered such a trial. As such drug companies are keen to work with the NHS as you only need to partner with a single organization to get access to a huge patient cohort.

    • BioNTech is a German company, so it would follow that they are the most proficient with navigating EU bureaucracy, and want to have their research a bit closer to home.

      I'm sure there is great interest from the US FDA as well as potential licensees of the tech (Pfizer, for one, as they already partnered with BioNTech for the Covid vaccine).

  • As I understand it, the safety profile of the mRNA carrier lipids is not well characterized. I recall reading that one lipid nanoparticle source used in the Covid vaccines specified "not for medical or veterinary use" on the data sheet. At any rate, this technology does not have a long history of use in humans, and like microplastics, lipid nanoparticles are transported throughout the body, crossing the blood brain barrier as well as individual cell membranes.

    • Re:Same lipid nanoparticles? (Score:5, Informative)

      by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday August 23, 2024 @06:02PM (#64730544) Journal

      I have a strong feeling that if you have been diagnosed with lung cancer, you probably care a bit less about if the safety profile of the mRNA carrier lipids are well characterized.

      Lung cancer has been well characterized, and you don't want it even a little bit. And if this is safer / more effective than the poisons we currently use for chemotherapy, or blasting your lungs with ionized radiation to shrink the tumor before massively invasive surgery, then you might be ok with figuring out the rest later.

  • Expect these treatments to cost 7 figures in the US while in other countries the cost will be a few thousand. The cost will be high enough insurance companies will balk at coverage or use delay tactics till it's too lake and the drug is no longer an option. One example, something as potentially life changing as Ozempic / WeGovy for weight loss costs $1400/ per month ($150 per / month in Canada) and many insurance companies are refusing coverage, despite all the costly proven medical co-morbidities result
    • I do not worry the Joe Camel points will pay for it and then me a Joe can ride off to a smoky sunset.

    • So are you just having a grievance piss and moan about a very encouraging development, or do you have anything actually information-based to back that up?

      This could replace treatments that cost just as much when you figure in the chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, pills, checkups, hospital stays, and every other damn thing that comes with being a cancer patient / survivor.

      A jab is always cheaper than surgery or months of IV infusions. Jabs can be mass-produced and don't require highly specialized facilities

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jabuzz ( 182671 )

      That is because next to nothing in the USA is big enough to negotiate hard with the drug companies. For example compared to the NHS everything is tiny little minos. Everyone understands that Walmart can get a better deal than a mom and pop store from a supplier but Americans seem astounded when the same thing happens with medicines.

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