Russia’s experimental cancer vaccine, Neonkovac, has shown positive and encouraging results in its first use, Alexander Gintsburg, scientific director of the Gamaleya Research Institute, said, according to RT International.
The first patient to receive the vaccine developed the desired immune response and feels completely well, said Gintsburg, who was involved in developing the treatment.
Last year, Russia’s health ministry approved two of its own personalized cancer treatments — an mRNA-based vaccine, Neonkovac, for melanoma, a skin cancer, and a peptide drug, Oncopept, for colorectal cancer.
In April this year, Neonkovac was administered for the first time to a 60-year-old patient with stage 3 melanoma at Moscow’s Herzen Oncology Research Institute. Gintsburg said the patient is now living normally and continuing treatment.
Tests have shown that the patient’s body has begun producing the active compounds needed to fight cancer tumors and metastasis, he said. Under the treatment schedule, the patient will be given two more doses. The melanoma vaccine is also being prepared for 10 more patients over the next one and a half to three months.
Andrey Kaprin, head of Russia’s national medical research center, said the technology is entirely different from conventional cancer treatment. A customized vaccine is made by analyzing the genetic features of a patient’s own tumor and healthy tissue, he said, training the body’s immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells directly. The Gamaleya Institute is also working on vaccines for pancreatic, kidney and lung cancer.
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