Moderna, Merck’s skin cancer vaccine shows sustained benefit in five-year follow-up

By Kamal Choudhury and Mariam Sunny

Jan 20 (Reuters) – Moderna and Merck said on Tuesday their experimental personalized vaccine continued to cut the risk of death or recurrence of the most deadly skin cancer five years after the treatment started.

In a mid‑stage study of high‑risk melanoma patients who had undergone surgery, the vaccine combined with Merck’s Keytruda reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 49% after five years, consistent with the three-year follow-up data in 2023.

The data points to an early success for Moderna as it seeks to turn its mRNA platform into a broader, durable franchise and plug the revenue gap left by waning COVID demand.

“If Moderna can recreate this 49% risk reduction in the much larger phase 3 trial, that bodes well for not only commercialization in melanoma but also prospects for the combination in other indications, like kidney, bladder, and lung cancers,” said Morningstar analyst Karen Andersen.

Moderna’s shares were up 2% amid weak broader markets.

The vaccine, intismeran autogene, uses a patient’s tumor‑specific genetic signature to train the immune system to recognize and attack cancer cells.

The data supports the sustained efficacy over many years, UBS analyst Michael Yee said, adding it needs to be confirmed in the late-stage trial.

Yee expects late-stage data to be available later this year based on event rate and study progress.

The vaccine could be priced similarly to Keytruda, around $200,000, and could achieve multi‑billion‑dollar peak sales in melanoma alone, Jefferies analysts estimated.

About 112,000 people in the U.S. are expected to be diagnosed with melanoma in 2026, according to the American Cancer Society.

(Reporting by Kamal Choudhury and Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar and Sriraj Kalluvila)