Vaccine news is exciting – but obstacles will remain

The science that helped bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control is continuing to show promise in treating other diseases. I recently returned from a large conference of cancer experts in the US where there were several presentations on promising early trials of cancer vaccines. Things are really moving in the right direction to bring this type of treatment to more patients sooner.

The announcement about Moderna and MSD’s melanoma cancer vaccine moving to phase 3 clinical trials means the vaccine will now be tested in a larger number of patients with melanoma post-surgery, to ensure it is an effective treatment for this type of cancer.

If the trial is successful, the same technology could be potentially used to target other cancers in combination with existing treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy.

It’s not just Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine technology being repurposed: Cancer Research UK and the CRIS Cancer Foundation recently announced up to £1.7m in funding to investigate whether Oxford-AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine platform can be used to make LungVax, the world’s first vaccine to prevent lung cancer.

We shouldn’t forget that the HPV vaccine has reduced cases of cervical cancer by nearly 90 per cent in women in their twenties who received the vaccine at age 12 to 13. It’s possible that we could eliminate this cancer type as a public health problem.

As there are over 200 types of cancer, vaccines are unlikely to always be a solution. We desperately need a systemic approach to addressing cancer’s complex challenges.

Research must be sufficiently funded to make more breakthroughs possible. We face an R&D funding gap of more than £1bn by the end of the next decade in cancer research. We want to work with all major political parties, industry and academia to ensure we can plug this gap.

Cancer vaccines progressing through clinical trials are exciting news. These breakthroughs should give us much cause to be optimistic, but we can’t lose sight of the challenges ahead. Tackling them head on will benefit all of us.

Iain Foulkes is executive director of research and innovation at Cancer Research UK