Adding Moderna and Merck’s personalized mRNA treatment intismeran to pembrolizumab after surgery reduced the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 42% compared with pembrolizumab alone, Melanoma Institute Australia reported in October. The phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial included 1,137 patients whose high-risk, stage IIB to IV melanoma had been surgically removed. They had not previously received cancer drug treatment.
The 42% figure is a relative reduction in the combined risk of recurrence or death. It is not a 42-percentage-point difference between the treatment groups or a finding about deaths alone.
Intismeran is designed using a sample of each patient’s tumor to help the immune system identify cancer cells. Georgina Long, the trial’s global principal investigator and the institute’s medical director, explained that pembrolizumab removes a brake on immune cells. Unlike a vaccine given to prevent disease in healthy people, intismeran is intended as treatment after a cancer diagnosis.
The institute reported that adding intismeran did not increase side effects attributed to pembrolizumab. It described transient, low-grade injection-site pain, headache and chills in some patients. In its October announcement, the institute said the results were entering a regulatory review process that could take several years, depending on the country. It said the treatment was not available at that time.
