So the British government signed two partnerships: one with Biontech to provide 10,000 patients with access to personal cancer treatments by 2030 and a 10 -year investment with Moderna at a production capacity and technology center of up to 250 million vaccines. The stars were aligned.
During this epidemic, Britain opened clinical tests within a few weeks. But before it takes years for a clinical trial. What changed?
It was really fascinating because for years, we believed that research was inherently slow. It takes 20 years to make drugs. Unfortunately, most cancer patients surrender until a drug is marketed. We have shown to the world that if you modernize your steps, you can do some parts of the process in parallel and use digital tools.
Of course, the opening of a clinical trial during an epidemic is not necessarily similar to a clinical trial for cancer. But you had a moment to succeed in the early stages of success for the cancer vaccine project.
A test was performed by Biontech called BNT122 for people with high -risk colon cancer that was not well absorbed worldwide. Therefore, when we announced the launch of a cancer vaccine, the British cancer community took this opportunity. We opened the trial at the Birmingham University Hospital, which was the most surprising to me, because this is not a leading center for cancer vaccine studies.
We have to register 10,000 patients in this trial and reach three months. It was quite amazing that it just shows that because we are a single health care system, we can do it much faster than any other country.
The dominoes were very quick to succeed: We opened a head and neck cancer trial in Liverpool, esophageal and gastric cancer testing in Dandodi, and a lung cancer test in London. We started creating a community of people who were all trying to launch cancer vaccine tests as soon as possible.
Several MRNA -based cancer vaccines are at the end of the international stage, and England currently performs 15 cancer vaccine trials. When will we see the first confirmed MRNA cancer vaccine?
We have a trial to prevent the return of skin cancer after stopping it. It’s over now. We were over -raped again, just like any of the trials we performed and the trial ended a year before the program. This is completely unaware of cancer tests because they are usually too long.
What will happen now is that, in the next six to 12 months, we will observe people on trial, and if there is a difference between people who have taken the cancer vaccine and those who have not done so. We hope to get a result by the end of the year or the beginning of 2026. If successful, we will invent the first approved Personal MRNA vaccine in just five years from the first MRNA vaccine licensed for COVID. This is very impressive
Listening to Lenard Lee speaks on March 18 at Kings Place, London at Wired Health. Get tickets at health.wired.comHuman
