Cancer treatment could face landmark moment with promising vaccine

An experimental drug that uses messenger RNA to deliver a vaccine customized to a patient’s tumors effectively prevented skin cancer recurrence in a large-scale clinical trial, according to new results announced by drugmakers Wednesday.

Researchers have explored the use of mRNA drugs — the same technology behind the leading coronavirus vaccines that helped end the pandemic — to treat cancer for years, but this one is the first to clear a Phase 3 trial, according to Moderna and Merck.

That opens the door for the Food and Drug Administration to potentially approve the first mRNA-based cancer treatment, in what would be a landmark moment for the fast-emerging field.

“This is representative of the next frontier of cancer immunotherapy,” Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, wrote to The Post.

Knudsen added that longer follow-ups would be needed to determine if the protection against recurrence caused by the drug continues to hold up in patients over time.

Washington Post, August 19, 2026