[Anchor]

Recently, multinational pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck announced that they successfully completed Phase 3 clinical trials for a vaccine designed to prevent cancer recurrence and metastasis. As global attention focused on the announcement, shares of these companies surged.

What kind of vaccine is this, and how does it differ from conventional anti-cancer drugs? Let's discuss this with Cho Dong-chan, a guest reporter and special appointment professor at Hanyang University. Reporter Cho, could you first explain the significance of this cancer vaccine? What does this successful clinical trial mean?

[Reporter]

To explain the principle first, everyone calls this a hand.

However, everyone's fingerprints are different.

Even for cancers with the same name, the genes vary from person to person.

Yet, the exact same anti-cancer drug was used.

That is why it worked for some people while it didn't for others.

However, this new cancer vaccine involves extracting a tumor mass from an individual patient and creating an injection based on it.

This is the culmination of 9 years of work since 2017.

The research team described it as a medicine tailored like a personal fingerprint.

While customized anti-cancer treatments tailored to individual patients already exist for certain blood cancers, this is the first technology that can be applied broadly to skin cancer, lung cancer, bladder cancer, and more.

[Anchor]

You explained that it is a customized vaccine, but how does it actually work in detail?

[Reporter]

Let me explain using an actual patient from the clinical trial.

He is a 52-year-old male who participated in clinical trials in the UK. He is a music teacher and had a 4mm-thick malignant melanoma on his skin, which was removed through surgery.

When you compare this patient's tumor mass with their normal tissue, mutations that occurred exclusively in this patient's cancer will emerge.

Among these, up to 34 mutations that immune cells can easily recognize as targets are selected.

How well these are selected is the core of this technology.

Using these 34 mutations as ingredients, an injection was manufactured using the mRNA technology that was previously used to make COVID-19 vaccines.

When this injection enters the patient's body, it generates new immune cells against the cancer or activates existing anti-cancer immune cells.

This is how it prevents cancer recurrence and metastasis.

[Anchor]

I am also curious about how it differs from conventional anti-cancer drugs.

What is the difference?

[Reporter]

Annoyingly enough, cancer cells blindside immune cells.

That is why conventional immune checkpoint inhibitors were developed.

They remove the blindfolds from immune cells so they can better detect cancer cells.

In contrast, this new cancer vaccine creates entirely new immune cells tailored precisely to an individual's cancer.

Since their mechanisms differ, using both together would be ideal.

That is correct; this vaccine clinical trial evaluated the combined effect of using both.

[Anchor]

There must be many patients eagerly awaiting commercialization. This is the most important question.

Does this mean curing cancer is becoming a reality?

[Reporter]

First of all, Moderna and Merck have not yet released the detailed data from the Phase 3 clinical trial.

Therefore, based on the Phase 2 results announced last June, for 157 high-risk melanoma patients who had completed surgery, 50 were treated solely with conventional anti-cancer drugs, while 107 were treated with a combination of conventional immunotherapy and the new cancer vaccine.

When observed 5 years later, the proportion of patients who survived without cancer recurrence increased significantly from 49% to 69%.

Commercialization might even take place next year.

However, since this vaccine primarily prevents cancer recurrence and metastasis, we need to observe further results to see if it can also be used as a primary treatment.

[Anchor]

We will have to wait and see what kind of innovation this brings.

Thank you for the insights.

(Video Editing: Lee So-young, Design: Jeon Yu-geun)

Reporter Cho Dong-chan