[오늘의 키워드] mRNA vaccine
Cancer vaccines using messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology are one of the areas that have received the most attention in the bio industry recently. mRNA technology addresses neoantigens that occur in cancer cells. By injecting mRNA containing neoantigen information, the body’s immune system attacks cancer cells with neoantigens. Treatment and prevention of recurrence is expected.
The British government announced on the 6th (local time) that it had partnered with the German company BioNTech for clinical trials of vaccines for several diseases, including cancer.
Biotech is one of the companies that actively participated in cancer vaccine development research using mRNA. However, when he faced a health crisis due to the spread of Corona 19 in 2020, he made the first corona vaccine with Pfizer and mRNA technology and made his name known to the world.
The agreement will allow British cancer patients to participate in the early stages of clinical trials involving personalized mRNA therapies, including a cancer vaccine that stimulates the immune system to attack cancer cells, CNBC and other foreign media reported. This treatment will be given to patients with early and late stages of cancer, and aims to treat cancer and prevent it from coming back at the same time.
BioNTech plans to establish a new research and development center in the UK, and from this year until 2030, it will carry out research on more than 10,000 patients, accelerating research on mRNA vaccines linked to cancer and other diseases.
“Our goal is to accelerate the development of immunotherapeutic drugs and vaccines by using technology that has been researched for over 20 years,” said Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech. “This collaboration will help tackle the various types of cancer and the epidemics that together affect hundreds of millions of people around the world.”
Peter Johnson, Cancer UK’s National Clinical Director, also said that mRNA technology has the potential to change approaches to many diseases.
BioNTech founder Ugur Sahin and his wife Ozlem Turezi previously answered “before 2030” to the question of when cancer vaccines based on the mRNA method would be available to patients in a BBC broadcast last month.
Global pharmaceutical companies MSD and Moderna announced in December last year that the results of phase 2 clinical trials for an mRNA cancer vaccine candidate (mRNA-4157 / V940) that are being jointly developed were positive.
