A new vaccine that fights lung cancer is being tested for the first time on patients in the UK. The first UK patient received the jab at the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Clinical Research Facility on Tuesday. Researchers leading the trial said the treatment could improve survival rates among people with the disease, with hopes that it could eventually become the standard of care worldwide.
Known as BNT116 and made by BioNTech, the vaccine is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease. It utilises messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to Covid -19 vaccines, and works by presenting the immune system with tumour markers from NSCLC to prime the body to fight cancer cells expressing these markers. It is hoped the jab will bolster a person’s immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy.
Professor Siow Ming Lee, a consultant medical oncologist at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) – which is leading the trial in the UK, told the PA news agency: “This technology has moved on incredibly fast. “It’s simple to deliver, and you can select specific antigens in the cancer cell, and then you target them.” The phase one clinical trial is the first in human study of BNT116, which will be given to lung cancer patients alongside standard immunotherapy.
“Immunotherapy has made a big progress, especially in lung cancer,” Prof Lee added. “But it still doesn�.