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shares of Moderna Wall Street fell Monday as it chewed through new trial results on a personalized cancer vaccine in development Merck.
Merck’s stock was relatively flat.
The experimental mRNA vaccine, when combined with Merck’s blockbuster drug Keytruda, reduces the risk of skin cancer melanoma recurrence by 44% compared to Keytruda alone, the companies said in their first detailed presentation on Sunday. rice field. result From a pivotal phase 2 trial.
Nearly 80% of participants who received both the vaccine and Keytruda remained cancer-free for 18 months, compared to 62% of those who received Keytruda alone. They added that side effects from vaccines were generally mild, with fatigue being the most common.
These results were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference in Florida and add to initial results on combination therapy presented in December.
Kyle Hollen, Ph.D., senior vice president of Moderna, said the results suggest that a vaccine in combination with Keytruda “may be a novel avenue that could extend life in high-risk melanoma patients.” . press releaseModerna and Merck said they would begin a phase 3 trial in 2023 and “expand rapidly” to study the treatment’s effects on additional tumor types, including major types of lung cancer.
Wall Street reacted to the news with a mixture of cautious optimism and doubt.
Analysts at SVB Securities said the results suggest that personalized cancer vaccines hold promise. In a note on Sunday, the company added that it did not consider expedited approval to be an option.
The Food and Drug Administration’s accelerated designation is intended to allow more rapid approval of drugs for serious conditions that meet unmet medical needs.
Many Moderna and Merck stakeholders are “cautiously optimistic” about the potential combination of cancer vaccines and Keytruda, according to a note Monday by Wolff research analyst Tim Anderson.
He said expectations for therapeutic combinations are pretty high heading into the weekend, but there are still plenty of cancer vaccine skeptics because of the “long history of failures in the field.”
Wells Fargo analyst Mohit Bansal also said he expressed “cautious optimism” about the treatment combination. pointed out a “trial imbalance” that could lead to
He said these imbalances justify waiting for more data on treatment.