Personalised Cancer Vaccine Shows Promising Long-term Results in Advanced Melanoma

Cancer vaccines are designed to help the immune system recognise and attack cancer cells. A personalised mRNA cancer vaccine is created using information from a person’s melanoma. It is designed to help the immune system recognise unique features of that person’s melanoma so that it can better target and destroy any remaining melanoma cells after treatment.

At the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) international conference in Chicago, researchers reported promising five year patient outcomes from the KEYNOTE-942 study of a personalised mRNA cancer vaccine known as intismeran. This vaccine was given after surgery for people with high-risk melanoma. The vaccine was given alongside standard immunotherapy (pembrolizumab) and compared with immunotherapy alone.

Five years after treatment, people who received the vaccine and immunotherapy combination were less likely to have their melanoma return or spread to other parts of the body than those who had received the standard treatment with immunotherapy alone.

These findings add to growing research into personalised cancer vaccines as a potential future treatment approach for people with melanoma. While the results are promising, this treatment is not yet available as a standard of care and is still being investigated in a larger clinical trial. This trial is now closed to recruitment, and we are hoping that results will be reported in 2027.

Read more on our website about cancer vaccines and personalised mRNA cancer vaccine approaches.