The 100-Year Life Health Education and Government
Could vaccinations prevent cancer? GSK is betting £50 million they could. The biopharma group has announced a commitment to fund at least three years of research at Oxford University to explore the potential for cancer prevention via vaccination.
Unlike vaccinations for Covid or Polio which are given before patients get sick, these vaccines would be designed to help a patient’s immune system recognise and kill cancer cells when they are already in the early stages of cancer.
Oxford already has a number of potential cancer vaccines under development with a range of pharma and research partners, including a vaccine to prevent lung cancer in people at high risk of the disease.
Although immunotherapy has been used to treat cancer for decades, recent advancements in mRNA vaccine technology (as seen with some Covid vaccines) and personal genome sequencing to identify tumour-specific proteins have bolstered scientists' optimism – and the pharma industry’s willingness to spend.
