🎗️ Now cancer vaccines are coming

• The immune system can now be used to treat several types of cancer, and more than 2,500 immunotherapies are in development.
• Cancer vaccines have also started to show results in clinical trials, against melanoma, pancreatic cancer, and brain tumors, among others.
• Researchers are testing vaccines meant to prevent cancer in people at high hereditary risk.

Fifteen years of immunotherapy

It has been fifteen years since the first clear proof that the immune system can be used to extend the lives of cancer patients. The field has grown quickly since then. Today there are more than 2,500 drugs and programs for cancer immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy works by strengthening the body's own immune system so that it attacks cancer cells. Today there are about eight different classes of immunotherapy that are approved or in development. Now one of the later steps is arriving: the vaccines.

Many ways to strengthen the immune system

Some drugs release the brakes that stop the immune system from attacking cancer cells, known as checkpoint inhibitors. These extended survival by anywhere from a couple of months to about a year and a half. The most widely used of them has more than 40 approved uses and is the best-selling cancer drug in the world. Several new checkpoint inhibitors are now being tested, often in combination with one another.

Another type is antibody drugs that carry a cell-killing agent directly into the cancer cell. More than 15 of these are approved, and over 300 are in development. A third type links a cancer cell to an immune cell. Nine such drugs are approved, and over 500 are on the way.

In cell therapy, immune cells are taken out of the patient, rebuilt, and given back. The first such treatment was approved in 2017 for blood cancer, and in 2024 a treatment was approved for melanoma. Recently, a new version using long-lived immune cells was given to eleven patients with blood cancer that had not responded to earlier treatment, with results in several of them.

How cancer vaccines work

A cancer vaccine teaches the immune system to recognize cancer cells. The tumor has specific markers on its surface that set it apart from healthy cells. The vaccine displays these markers so that the immune system learns to find and attack those particular cells.

The vaccines are often given together with an immune drug. The vaccine points out the target, and the drug makes sure the immune system is allowed to attack it. Most of the vaccines are made from the patient's own tumor and take about two months to produce.

Results in clinical trials

Between 2020 and 2025, several trials showed results. Patients with high-risk melanoma that had been surgically removed were given a vaccine together with an immune drug. They went longer without recurrence than those who received only the drug. The same vaccine is now being tested in larger trials for melanoma and lung cancer.

Patients with pancreatic cancer were given a vaccine after surgery. It produced a long-lasting immune response and later recurrence. In a form of brain tumor, a vaccine extended overall survival compared with earlier patient groups.

In a trial for metastatic melanoma, patients were given a vaccine together with an immune drug. The median time without the disease worsening was 25.5 months. In a trial for kidney cancer, patients were given a vaccine, and none of them had a recurrence over 42 months. In a form of late-stage leukemia, a vaccine doubled survival compared with earlier treatment.

Vaccines meant to prevent cancer

The other type of vaccine is meant to prevent cancer in people at high hereditary risk. A trial in people with a hereditary condition that raises the risk of cancer produced a strong immune response in 45 participants. Similar work is under way for people with hereditary mutations that raise the risk of breast cancer. Researchers have also produced early results for a vaccine meant to prevent pancreatic cancer.

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