Moderna CEO Sees Kidney Cancer Promise for Personalized Treatment

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said Oct. 26 he expects the company’s personalized cancer treatment to show promise in kidney cancer, while clinical studies must determine whether it works beyond melanoma.

“We believe that this is going to work in more cancers than melanoma,” Bancel said. “But I believe the kidney cancer should look positive.” He also cautioned that its effectiveness across all cancers is unknown.

Intismeran autogene, also known as V940 or mRNA-4157, is being developed with Merck and designed around mutations in an individual patient’s tumor. It is being studied in a Phase 2 renal cell carcinoma trial and a Phase 1/2 bladder cancer trial, as well as a Phase 3 non-small-cell lung cancer trial.

The clinical evidence Bancel discussed came from melanoma. In the Phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial, the treatment combined with pembrolizumab reduced the relative hazard of recurrence or death by 42% compared with pembrolizumab alone after a median 24.6 months of follow-up. The trial enrolled 1,137 patients with completely resected stage IIB-IV melanoma. Overall-survival data were not yet mature.

Those melanoma trial results do not establish that the treatment works in kidney, bladder or lung cancer.