Moderna公司在癌症疫苗领域取得了重大突破
【中美创新时报2026年8月21日讯】（记者温友平编译）在莫德纳（Moderna）和默克 （Merck） 本周宣布针对黑色素瘤的个性化信使 RNA 疗法试验取得成功后，医生、科学家和患者权益倡导者对癌症疫苗的未来充满了希望。《波士顿环球报》记者马林·沃尔夫对此作了下述报道。
完整的研究结果尚未公布，但如果结果属实，这将标志着最致命的皮肤癌患者的治疗取得了重大科学进展，并可能为其他类型癌症的治疗带来突破。研究人员长期以来一直致力于利用人体自身的免疫系统，并针对每位患者肿瘤的具体情况进行治疗，而这种新型注射疗法正是如此：它是为每位患者量身定制的。
“这项结果最令人兴奋的潜在意义在于，我们可能会在其他肿瘤类型中看到类似的结果，其中一些肿瘤甚至比黑色素瘤更常见，”贝斯以色列女执事医疗中心肿瘤内科主任大卫·麦克德莫特博士说。
Moderna 的疫苗与制药公司默克的重磅免疫疗法 Keytruda 在癌症手术切除后联合使用，与单独使用 Keytruda 相比，延长了患者的无癌症复发生存期以及无癌症扩散生存期。
这种名为英替美兰（Intismeran）的疫苗由莫德纳公司位于马尔堡的生产基地制造，并根据患者个体癌症的基因序列进行定制。据报道，在早期试验中，该疗法使癌症复发或扩散的风险降低了49%。
最新结果来自一项三期临床试验，这是向美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）申请批准前的最后阶段。据美国癌症协会统计，今年美国预计将有约8510人死于黑色素瘤，另有11.2万例新增黑色素瘤病例。
Moderna公司正与默克公司合作，测试其个性化疫苗技术对多种癌症的疗效。
目前已有几项针对不同阶段非小细胞肺癌的3期临床试验。据美国癌症协会统计，今年美国各类肺癌将导致近12.5万人死亡。
针对肾细胞癌（最常见的肾癌类型）的二期临床试验也在进行中。Moderna首席开发官David Berman表示，Moderna预计将在今年晚些时候或明年初对肾细胞癌疫苗进行中期分析，即对试验进展情况进行中期评估。
美国癌症协会估计，今年美国将有约 15160 人死于各种类型的肾癌。
另一项针对膀胱癌的二期临床试验正在进行中，据该协会估计，今年美国将有17870人死于膀胱癌。伯曼表示，该公司预计明年将公布膀胱癌试验的结果。
Moderna公司目前正在进行一项二期临床试验，测试一种可以治疗已扩散到身体其他部位的黑色素瘤的疫苗。
密切关注这些进展的并非只有科学家。癌症患者及其照护者也在关注新闻，期盼着新的治疗方案即将问世。
北安普顿和斯普林菲尔德的非营利癌症支持中心 Cancer Connection 的执行主任 Chelsea Kline 表示，她谨慎乐观地认为，这项技术可能会对其他癌症患者产生影响。
“我失去了一位挚友，她死于黑色素瘤，所以心情很复杂，”克莱恩说。“如果（这种疗法）能早点出现就好了。但如果能防止其他人将来失去亲人，那就太好了。”
贝斯以色列医院的麦克德莫特表示，虽然有效癌症疫苗的存在本身就值得欢欣鼓舞，但莫德纳黑色素瘤治疗候选药物的另一个潜在优势是其副作用似乎有限。
麦克德莫特表示，疫苗所搭配的药物类型可能会对一小部分患者造成严重的、有时甚至是永久性的问题，因此，疫苗不能增加更多风险至关重要。
伯曼表示，Moderna 在癌症治疗领域的工作历经多年，代表着该公司“回到未来”的时刻。
虽然新冠肺炎让该公司家喻户晓，但 Moderna 最初成立于 2010 年，旨在利用 mRNA（携带制造蛋白质所需遗传指令的分子）来治疗癌症和其他疾病。
新冠疫苗和癌症疫苗针对的是不同类型的靶点——抵御病毒需要免疫系统的不同部分，而抵御癌症复发则需要免疫系统的不同部分——但 Moderna 发现，两者的研究和开发互相促进。
疫情初期，美国急需疫苗来保护民众免受新冠病毒的快速传播。伯曼表示，莫德纳公司在这方面具备得天独厚的优势。科学家们一致认为，莫德纳疫苗及其后续加强针的快速研发和成功，再加上辉瑞和BioNTech两家制药公司研发的类似产品，有效地终结了这场夺走超过100万美国人生命的疫情威胁。
这也使莫德纳公司成为政治反弹的目标，领头羊是著名的疫苗和mRNA技术怀疑论者小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪，他现在是美国卫生与公众服务部部长。2025年，联邦政府终止了与该公司价值7.66亿美元的合同，该合同旨在开发一种针对禽流感的mRNA疫苗。此外，莫德纳公司在向美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）申请批准其用于老年人的mRNA流感疫苗时，也遇到了不同寻常的阻碍。
Moderna公司股价从疫情期间的高峰期暴跌，此前该公司的一些创始人和高管曾因此成为亿万富翁。该公司已将其在马萨诸塞州的员工人数削减了40%以上，目前仅剩约2600名员工。
这家生物技术公司重返其癌症治疗领域，这一次，他们拥有在极短时间内生产疫苗的经验。伯曼表示，这对于癌症疫苗而言尤为重要，因为从采集患者肿瘤样本到研发和生产个性化疗法，必须在大约六周内完成。
“从确定新冠病毒序列到实际研制出第一种药物，我认为只用了42天，”今年早些时候加入该公司的伯曼说。“这种速度和周转时间正是我们需要的，以便在患者病情恶化之前将药物送到他们手中。”
伯曼说，为了生产黑色素瘤疫苗疗法，科学家们会从患者的肿瘤中提取样本，识别其独特的基因突变，然后将这些信息整合到位于马尔伯勒的工厂中，进行多轮注射治疗。注射疫苗后，可以帮助训练人体的免疫系统识别并攻击癌细胞。
TD Cowen 分析师 Tyler Van Buren 表示，周三公布的临床试验结果对 Moderna 来说意义重大，这一点从该公司股价周三收于 174 美元以上即可看出，几乎是周二收盘价的三倍。
“如果这些数据没有得到证实，那么 Moderna 基本上只能是一家呼吸道疾病疫苗公司，”范布伦说，“但有了这项积极的试验结果，它也使该公司转型成为一家肿瘤公司。”
题图：2015年，Moderna公司的一名生产助理在该公司位于剑桥的实验室工作，当时该实验室率先使用信使RNA（mRNA）技术，对人体细胞进行编程，使其能够对抗疾病。凯瑟琳·泰勒为《波士顿环球报》供图
附原英文报道：
Moderna just made a huge leap forward in the world of cancer vaccines. Here’s what to know.
Moderna and Merck are also conducting trials with personalized injections to fight types of bladder, kidney, and lung cancers
By Marin Wolf Globe Staff,Updated August 20, 2026
A Moderna production associate worked in 2015 in the company’s Cambridge lab as it pioneered the use of messenger RNA that can program cells in the human body to fight disease. Katherine Taylor for The Boston Globe
Doctors, scientists, and patient advocates are brimming with hope for the future of cancer vaccines after Moderna and Merck announced this week the successful trial results of a personalized messenger RNA treatment for melanoma.
The full results weren’t released yet, but if they hold up, they would signal a major scientific advancement for patients with the deadliest form of skin cancer and a potential breakthrough in the possibilities for treating other kinds of cancer. Researchers have long sought to harness the body’s immune system in a way that accounts for the specifics of each patient’s tumor, and the new injection does just that: it is custom-made for each person.
“Potentially the most exciting implication from this result is that we might see similar results in other tumor types, some of which are even more common than melanoma,” said Dr. David McDermott, chief of medical oncology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Moderna’s vaccine, which was given alongside drugmaker Merck’s blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda after the cancer was surgically removed, extended how long patients lived without their cancer returning, as well as how long they lived without their cancer spreading, when compared to Keytruda alone.
The vaccine, called intismeran, was made at Moderna’s Marlborough manufacturing facility, tailored to the genetic sequence of a patient’s individual cancer. In an earlier-stage trial, the therapy reportedly resulted in a 49-percent reduced risk of the cancer returning or spreading.
The latest results came from a Phase 3 trial, the final stage before seeking Food and Drug Administration approval. About 8,510 people are expected to die of melanoma this year in the US, and 112,000 new melanomas will be diagnosed this year, according to the American Cancer Society.
Moderna is testing its personalized vaccine technology, also in partnership with Merck, on a slate of different cancers.
A few Phase 3 trials are targeting non-small cell lung cancers at various stages. Lung cancer of all kinds will cause nearly 125,000 deaths in the US this year, according to the American Cancer Society.
Phase 2 trials are also ongoing for renal cell carcinoma — the most common kind of kidney cancer. Moderna expects to have an interim analysis — or a mid-trial review of how the study is going — for the renal cell cancer vaccine either later this year or early next, said David Berman, Moderna’s chief development officer.
Kidney cancers of all kinds will kill about 15,160 people this year in the US, the American Cancer Society estimates.
Another Phase 2 trial is under way for bladder cancer, which the society estimates will kill 17,870 people in the US this year. The company expects to have results on the bladder cancer trial next year, Berman said.
Moderna is also running a Phase 2 trial for a vaccine that would treat melanoma that has already spread to other parts of the body.
Scientists aren’t the only ones closely monitoring these developments. Cancer patients and caregivers are following the news, waiting for shreds of hope that new treatment options are on the horizon.
Chelsea Kline, executive director of Cancer Connection, a nonprofit cancer support center in Northampton and Springfield, said she is cautiously optimistic that the technology could make a difference for patients suffering from other cancers.
“I lost one of my dearest friends to melanoma, so it’s bittersweet,” Kline said. “If only [the treatment] had come earlier. But if you can prevent someone from losing their person in the future, that’s very exciting.”
While the mere existence of an effective cancer vaccine is reason for jubilation, another potential boon of Moderna’s melanoma therapy candidate is its seemingly limited side effects, Beth Israel’s McDermott said.
The type of drug the vaccine is paired with can cause serious, sometimes permanent issues for a small subset of patients, McDermott said, making it critical that the vaccine doesn’t add even more risk.
Moderna’s work on cancer has been many years in the making, and represents a “back to the future” moment for the company, said Berman.
Though COVID was the disease that made the company a household name, Moderna was originally founded in 2010 to target cancer and other diseases using mRNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions needed to make proteins.
The COVID and cancer shots are based on different types of targets — protecting against viruses requires a different part of the immune system than protecting against cancer recurrence — but Moderna found the research and development of each informed the other.
At the outset of the pandemic, the country needed a vaccine, and quickly, to protect people against the rapidly spreading COVID virus. It was a task Moderna was uniquely primed to do, Berman said. The whirlwind production and success of that vaccine and its booster shot successors, in conjunction with a similar product from drugmakers Pfizer and BioNTech, effectively ended the pandemic threat that claimed more than 1 million US lives, scientists agree.
It also made Moderna the target of political backlash, led by noted vaccine and mRNA technology skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The federal government in 2025 severed a $766 million contract with the firm to develop an mRNA vaccine against bird flu, and Moderna faced unusual hurdles by the US Food and Drug Administration in the approval of its mRNA flu vaccine for older adults.
Moderna tumbled off of its pandemic-era high, which had made some of its founders and top executives billionaires. The company cut its Massachusetts workforce by more than 40 percent, now down to about 2,600 employees.
The biotech returned to its cancer roots, this time armed with the experience of producing vaccines under an extreme time crunch. That’s particularly important when it comes to cancer vaccines, Berman said, since the development and manufacturing of a personalized therapy has to happen within about six weeks from when a patient’s tumor is sampled.
“From the identification of the COVID sequence to actually making the first drug was, I think, 42 days,” said Berman, who joined the company earlier this year. “That speed and turnaround is exactly what’s needed in getting this to the patient before they progress.”
To manufacture the melanoma vaccine therapy, scientists take samples from patients’ tumors, identify their unique genetic mutations, then incorporate that information into making several rounds of injectable treatments at the Marlborough facility, Berman said. The vaccine, when injected, helps train the person’s immune system to recognize cancerous cells to attack.
TD Cowen analyst Tyler Van Buren said Wednesday’s clinical trial results were a “huge deal” for Moderna, which was evident when the company’s share price closed at more than $174 on Wednesday, nearly triple its price at market close Tuesday.
“If these data did not hit, then Moderna would have largely been stuck as a respiratory illness vaccine company,” Van Buren said, “but by having this positive trial readout, it transforms the company into an oncology company as well.”
