Key Summary
- The vaccine uses mRNA technology to help the immune system recognise and kill cancer cells containing human papillomavirus proteins
- The trial will be held at 15 hospitals over the next year, supported by the NHS’ Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad
- Life sciences company BioNTech to help identify potentially eligible patients for the clinical trial
More than 100 patients with advanced head and neck cancers in England will be fast-tracked into a trial of a new cancer vaccine.
This vaccine utilises mRNA technology to help the immune system recognise and kill cancer cells that contain human papillomavirus proteins.
The trial will be held at 15 hospitals over the next year, supported by the NHS Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad (CVLP).
This is the third cancer vaccine trial to be run through the NHS CVLP, coordinated by the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit, which has already helped refer around 550 patients to trials of vaccines for bowel and skin cancers.
NHS England is partnering with the life sciences company BioNTech to help identify potentially eligible patients to refer to hospitals participating in the clinical trial.
Cancers that develop in the mouth, throat or voice box are classified as head and neck cancers.
In England, more than 11,000 new head and neck cancer cases are diagnosed every year, and they are difficult to treat with high rates of recurrence.
The vaccine is designed to encode two proteins that are frequently found in head and neck squamous cell cancers associated with human papillomavirus (HPV-16).
It is the most common type of head and neck cancer, accounting for 95 per cent of these types of cancers.
NHS England's national clinical director for cancer professor Peter Johnson said the vaccine offers renewed hope of holding the disease at bay.
Cancer Research UK executive director Dr Iain Foulkes said, “The Cancer Vaccines Launch Pad is an important route to fast-track promising mRNA vaccine technology into clinical trials. It’s great to see more clinical trials of vaccines for head and neck cancer supported by the Cancer Research UK-funded Southampton Clinical Trials Unit."
