Therefore, the UK government has signed two partnerships. One is one partnership to provide patients to 10,000 patients to receive personalized cancer treatment by 2030, and a 10-year investment with Moderna at an innovation and technology center with the ability to produce up to 250 million vaccines. The stars were all there.
During the pandemic, the UK had begun clinical trials within weeks. But before it took years to complete the clinical trial. What has changed?
It was really fascinating because we have long believed that research was inherently slow. Previously, it took me 20 years to bring the medicine to the market. Unfortunately, most cancer patients succumb to the time the medication comes to the market. It showed the world what modernising the process, running parts of the process in parallel, and using digital tools can do in a year.
Of course, starting clinical trials during a pandemic is not necessarily the same as clinical trials for cancer. But you had a groundbreaking moment in your cancer vaccine project in the early stages.
There was a trial conducted by Bintech, called Bnt122, on people with high-risk bowel cancer that was less adopted around the world. So when it announced the cancer vaccine launch pad, the UK cancer community took advantage of the opportunity. We set up that trial at Birmingham University Hospital. This was the most surprising thing for me. Because it is not a major cancer vaccine research centre.
10,000 patients had to be registered for court and within three months they got there. It was very surprising. As we are a single healthcare system, we show that we can do it much faster than any other country.
Dominoes began to fall very quickly behind their success. We have started head and neck cancer trials in Liverpool, esophageal and gastric cancer trials in Dundee, and lung cancer trials in London. We have begun to create a community of people who want to start testing for cancer vaccines as soon as possible.
Several mRNA-based cancer vaccines have been conducted internationally in late-stage clinical trials, with the UK currently running 15 cancer-cancer-vaccine trials. When will the first approved mRNA cancer vaccine be displayed?
After you cut it there is an exam to stop the skin cancer from coming back. It’s now finished. Like all of the exams we performed, we were again overcompensated and the exam ended a year before schedule. It’s completely unheard of in cancer trials as they usually run long.
What happens now is to monitor and resolve people in the trial if there is a difference between those who have been on the cancer vaccine and those who have not been on it for the next six to 12 months. I hope to get results by the end of the year or early 2026. If successful, within just five years of Covid’s first approved mRNA vaccine, they invented the first approved personalized mRNA vaccine. That’s pretty impressive.
Hearing Leonard Lee speaks Wired Health On March 18th, at Kings Place, London. Get your tickets at Health.wired.com.
