Russian scientists are planning to develop therapeutic vaccines against bladder cancer, small-cell lung cancer, and colorectal cancer, according to Dr. Alexander Gintsburg, research director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology.
No timeline has yet been announced for the development or clinical trial start dates of the new drugs. These are not preventive vaccines for healthy individuals, but rather treatments designed to target existing tumors by activating the patient’s immune system.
A previous Russian development – the personalized mRNA vaccine Neoncovac for melanoma – was first administered to a patient on April 1. At the end of July, Gintsburg reported that the drug had elicited a strong immunological response, with the patient feeling well and continuing treatment.
However, the scientist noted that the treatment’s efficacy can only be reliably assessed in the absence of long-term relapse – a period of observation that should extend to approximately five years.