New £400,000 melanoma vaccine heralds start of ‘cancer renaissance’ as UK trials personalised jabs for lung, bowel, pancreas and liver tumours… but experts fear NHS can’t afford them
The UK is entering a ‘cancer renaissance’ with pioneering personalised vaccines to combat some of the deadliest tumours expected by 2030, say leading experts.
Trials are already underway offering patients with lung, liver, kidney, bowel and pancreas cancer jabs that could prevent the disease returning.
A first-of-its-kind partnership between the NHS and cancer vaccine developers, announced last year, will mean that British patients will get priority access to these game-changing drugs.
The bespoke jabs, created using the same technology behind the Covid vaccines, train the body to hunt down cancer cells, and prevent the disease from coming back.
However, there are question marks over the affordability of the treatment which cost around £400,000 per patient, insiders have told MailOnline.
Steve Young, 52, from Stevenage is of the first patients on the melanoma vaccine trial at University College Hospital London
Steve is administered his first melanoma jab at the University College London Hospital from Nurse Christian Medina
The news comes after an announcement today that the first personalised vaccine for melanoma skin cancer was being trialled on NHS patients.
Early results suggest the jab can drastically improve the survival chances of patients with the disease – the deadliest form of skin cancer.
One patient who has already received the vaccine, Steve Young, 52 from Stevenage, described it as his ‘best chance of stopping the cancer in its tracks’.
One of the first patients on the trial at UCLH is Steve Young, 52, from Stevenage.
His ‘bump on the head’ — which he thinks he had for around a decade — turned out to be melanoma.
He said it was a ‘massive shock’ to be diagnosed.
One of the first patients on the trial at UCLH is Steve Young, 52, from Stevenage. His ‘bump on the head’ — which he thinks he had for around a decade — turned out to be melanoma
‘I literally spent two weeks just thinking ‘this is it’,’ he said.
‘My dad died of emphysema when he was 57 and I actually thought ‘I’m going to die younger than my dad’.’
Mr Young said when he was told about the trial at UCLH it ‘really triggered my geek radar’.
He added: ‘It really piqued my interest.
‘As soon as they mentioned this mRNA technology that was being used to potentially fight cancer, I was just like, ‘it sounds fascinating’ and I still feel the same. I’m really, really excited.
‘This is my best chance at stopping the cancer in its tracks.’
Mr Young was diagnosed with melanoma after a bump on his head – which he thinks he had for around a decade – turned out to be cancerous.
However, experts say that melanoma is just one of many cancers that could be cured thanks to personalised vaccines.
‘These vaccines could help cancer patients across the board,’ says Dr Lennard Lee, a cancer vaccine expert at the University of Oxford.
‘This is new tech that we didn’t have before that could save the lives of patients.
‘There are already trials ongoing for head and neck, bowel, pancreas, lung and liver cancers, and the number will only increase month-by-month, year-by-year.
‘It’s a whole field of medicine which has exploded from nowhere. It feels like the UK is entering a renaissance for cancer treatment.’
Professor Lee added: ‘Drug manufacturers are all targeting 2030 as the year to get these vaccines out there.’
Cancer vaccines are designed to target specific genetic mutations found in the cancer cells.
This means that, should the cancer return, the immune system will spot it immediately and destroy the cells before they have time to spread.
To create the jab, a sample of tumour is removed during the patient’s surgery.
This is then sent to a laboratory where the tumour genes are sequenced to identify certain proteins created by cancer cells, known as neoantigens, that will trigger an immune response.
These are then used to create an individualised mRNA vaccine – the same cutting-edge technology used to develop several of the Covid jabs.
The vaccine tells the patient’s body to generate the tumour-specific neoantigens which in turn train the immune system to recognise and attack the tumour cells.
Data published last year found that, in a small study, high-risk melanoma patients who were given the new jab alongside another immune-boosting drug were almost half as likely to die or have their cancer come back after three years, compared to those only taking the immunotherapy.
Patients have to get a new jab, alongside a course of immunotherapy, every three weeks for a year.
However, experts say they are particularly excited about the potential of the vaccines to help cure patients with pancreas cancer – a deadly form of the disease with few effective treatments.
Every year, around 10,000 patients are diagnosed with pancreas cancer – and around the same die of it annually.
The condition is so deadly because it is often diagnosed late due to a lack of obvious symptoms.
Only around five per cent of patients will survive the disease for more than a decade.
Earlier this month, new data from a study giving mRNA vaccines to pancreas patients after surgery showed signs that it induced a strong immune response that would reduce the risk of the disease returning.
A larger study, involving 260 patients, is now underway.
‘We’ve come a long way in the treatment of melanoma over the years now and we can cure around half of all patients,’ says Professor Tom Powles, director of Barts’ Cancer Centre.
‘But there is just nothing that works for pancreas cancer.
‘If given to patients early enough, cancer vaccines could open a new chapter for pancreas patients by reducing the risk of the disease returning.
‘If I was a pancreas cancer patient this is the trial I would want to get on.’
However, there are concerns over the cost of the vaccine.
‘Currently, it costs around 500,000 dollars [£399,000] to develop each course of jabs,’ says an industry source.
The jabs use the same mRNA-based technology found in the Covid vaccine to harness the body’s immune system and kill cancer
‘At that price the NHS will struggle to afford them.
‘The drug companies will need to find a way to make the vaccines commercially viable.’
But experts say the NHS’s partnership with vaccine developers Moderna and BioNTech, which will see thousands of UK patients enrolled on their trials, could allow Britons to access these new treatments sooner than those in other countries.
‘In the coming years, NHS cancer patients can expect to see more opportunities to get onto these vaccine trials,’ says Dr Lee.
‘These are opportunities patients elsewhere might not get.’
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