At the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, data were presented on a number of cancer vaccines, including those against melanoma, glioblastoma, and squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.
Cancer vaccines are undergoing clinical trials; however, some difficulties may arise due to growing skepticism about their safety among senior US health officials, including US Surgeon General Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In August 2025, Robert Kennedy Jr. took steps to deprioritize mRNA vaccine research by withdrawing $500 million in funding from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). This action affected 22 mRNA vaccine development programs.
In a conversation with the publication Pharmaceutical Technology , a subsidiary publication Clinical Trials Arena , Experts have warned that these changes could lead to the politicization of decisions regarding mRNA vaccines, despite the technology being a "breakthrough" in the world of vaccination.
The melanoma vaccine reduces the risk of death by almost half.
In a Phase IIb study, the Intismeran cancer vaccine, developed by Moderna and Merck, reduced the risk of skin cancer recurrence and death by 49%. This reduction was calculated five years after surgical removal of patients' tumors and remains consistent.
After five years of follow-up, 68,8% patients receiving combination therapy remained cancer-free, while 49,1% patients in the pembrolizumab-only group had no evidence of cancer.
Combination therapy also reduced the risk of distant metastases—the spread of cancer to other parts of the body—by 59%. Overall survival (OS) was 92.2% in the group receiving the vaccine in combination with immunotherapy, compared with 71.3% in the group receiving immunotherapy alone.
At the ASCO 2026 conference, the companies presented data from the KEYNOTE-942 study, which used Intismeran in combination with Merck's Keytruda (pembrolizumab). The study involved 107 patients undergoing melanoma surgery to determine whether the combination therapy prevented cancer recurrence.
Intismeran is a personalized immunotherapy strategy developed based on information about the patient's individual tumor.
Dr. Janice Mehnert, who is also director of the melanoma medical oncology program and associate director of clinical research at the Perlmutter Cancer Center, said: «Our findings give cancer researchers around the world hope that mRNA vaccines like Intismeran may work well in combination with immunotherapy in other cancers where high mutation rates have proven difficult to target.».
Brain cancer vaccine increases life expectancy by almost a year.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's personalized neoantigen vaccine, NeoVax, increased survival by 11.6 months in a phase I clinical trial (NCT02287428) in patients with brain cancer.
In the study, the combination of NeoVax with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) resulted in a median overall survival (OS) of 36.9 months in patients with newly diagnosed MGMT-positive glioblastoma, compared with 25.3 months in a control group receiving standard-of-care treatment at an institution matched for prognostic factors.
In patients with an unmethylated MGMT gene, the median overall survival was 19 months compared with 16.7 months in the control group, which was called a counterintuitive result.
Patients in cohort 1B who started Keytruda treatment after primary vaccination had reduced overall survival compared with patients in cohorts 2 and 3, where Keytruda was started before vaccination.
«Contrary to our predictions, we observed the opposite pattern: patients who received PD-1 blockade after primary vaccination (cohort 1B) had worse outcomes compared to patients who received PD-1 blockade before vaccination,» said Dr. David Reardon, clinical director of the Center for Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
The study included patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma who had undergone total tumor resection, had a Karnofsky performance index of 70 or higher, adequate organ function, and were not taking dexamethasone.
Tumor tissue samples obtained during surgery were subjected to DNA and RNA sequencing and HLA typing to identify coding mutations that were suspected of generating immunogenic neoepitopes for the patient's HLA alleles.
Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) Rybrevant Faspro (amivantamab) achieved an overall response rate (ORR) in 42%, with more than a third of patients achieving a complete response.
In the Phase Ib/II OrigAMI-4 study, patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck received subcutaneous Ribrevant Faspro.
The study also reported 27% partial response rates, 63% clinical efficacy rates, and a median time to first response of 6.6 weeks (range 5.6–36.9).
Median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were 6.8 and 12.5 months, respectively. The median duration of response has not yet been reached, and the median follow-up period is 11.8 months.
Dr. Barbara Bertness, a medical oncologist and professor of medicine at the Yale University Cancer Center in New Haven, Connecticut, said, "Patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer who have already been treated with immunotherapy and chemotherapy face a very poor prognosis. The high response rate observed with subcutaneous Ribrevant, including more than a third of patients achieving complete remission, and the durability of these responses suggest that it has the potential to significantly improve the prognosis for these patients.".
A supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) has been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for approval of subcutaneous ribrevant faspro for head and neck cancer following its Breakthrough Therapy designation.
The article "ASCO26: Cancer vaccines and home-administered injectables continue to show promise" was originally created and published by Clinical Trials Arena, a brand owned by GlobalData.
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