Thousands of NHS patients are taking part in cancer vaccine trials

Thousands of NHS patients will take part in cancer vaccine trials as part of a £750million research project to ‘revolutionize’ the treatment.

BioNTech – the company behind one of the most successful Covid vaccines – has reached an agreement with ministers to set up a series of specialist centers in England.

The first is expected to open in Cambridge with around 70 of the world’s leading scientists working on technology that uses a person’s immune system to fight the disease.

The trials of the personalized therapies will begin in September with the aim of administering around 10,000 vaccinations by 2030 and, if successful, introducing them worldwide.

BioNTech – the company behind one of the most successful Covid vaccines – has reached an agreement with ministers to set up a series of specialist centers in England. A file photo is used above

Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said it would create jobs and strengthen the UK’s position as a “leader in global life sciences”.

He said: “This partnership means that, as early as September, our patients will be among the first to participate in trials and trials to offer targeted, personalized and precise treatments with transformative new therapies to both treat the existing cancer and to help stop it coming back.’ Early studies in pancreatic, ovarian and testicular cancer showed promise as patients received a personalized vaccine to trick their immune systems into attacking their disease.

Patients nominated for trials by the NHS and Genomics England via the Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad.

The agreement follows the success of the launch of the Covid vaccine in the UK, which BioNTech founder Professor Ugur Sahin described as “exemplary”.

Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said it would create jobs and strengthen the UK’s position as a “leader in global life sciences”.

He said the immunotherapies are the result of two decades of research and have the potential to help “hundreds of millions of people worldwide.”

“If successful, this collaboration has the potential to improve patient outcomes and enable early access to our range of cancer immunotherapies, as well as innovative vaccines against infectious diseases – in the UK and globally.” The mRNA technology used works by sending an instruction, or blueprint, to cells to produce an antigen or protein, allowing the immune system to recognize and destroy the cancer.

The deal comes after the government pledged to develop new therapies, including targeted vaccines, and find methods for earlier diagnosis.

Professor Peter Johnson, NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Cancer, said it will “unlock the potential to develop revolutionary treatments in the UK for the benefit of NHS patients”.

He added, “mRNA technology has the potential to be a transformative approach across a range of diseases, and we hope that by understanding how people can fight their own, we can further improve their chances of staying cancer-free.” cancer can be vaccinated.”