--- title: Moderna and Merck say their mRNA cancer vaccine cut... description: A personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine cut the risk of death or recurrence by 42 percent compared to standard treatment, Merck and Moderna announced. The Phase 3... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/moderna-and-merck-say-their-mrna-cancer-vaccine-cut-death-recurrence-by-42--nhocdwe1p twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Moderna and Merck say their mRNA cancer vaccine cut death, recurrence by 42% | daily.dev og:description: A personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine cut the risk of death or recurrence by 42 percent compared to standard treatment, Merck and Moderna announced. The Phase 3... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/moderna-and-merck-say-their-mrna-cancer-vaccine-cut-death-recurrence-by-42--nhocdwe1p og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/nHOcdwe1p.png og:image:alt: Moderna and Merck say their mRNA cancer vaccine cut death, recurrence by 42% og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Moderna and Merck say their mRNA cancer vaccine cut death, recurrence by 42% **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine cut the risk of death or recurrence by 42 percent compared to standard treatment, Merck and Moderna announced. The Phase 3 trial enrolled 1,137 patients with surgically removed stage IIB to IV melanoma, randomized 2-1 to receive the vaccine with a standard treatment or the standard treatment alone. Merck and Moderna are already engaging regulators to seek approval. The full data has been accepted for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much did Moderna and Merck's personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine reduce death or recurrence risk in the Phase 3 trial? It reduced the risk of death or recurrence by 42 percent compared to standard treatment alone. The Phase 3 trial enrolled 1,137 patients with surgically removed stage IIB to IV melanoma, randomized 2-1 to receive the vaccine combined with Merck's Keytruda or Keytruda alone. Full data has been accepted for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine. _Track how mRNA-based personalized medicine trial results evolve by following biotech coverage on daily.dev._ ### What standard treatment was compared against the personalized mRNA cancer vaccine in the melanoma trial? The comparison arm used Merck's established monoclonal antibody cancer treatment Keytruda alone, versus Keytruda combined with the personalized mRNA vaccine. Patients had stage IIB to IV melanoma that was surgically removed before entering the trial, and were randomized 2-1 between the two treatment groups across 1,137 total participants. _Readers weighing emerging cancer therapies against established ones can follow trial updates on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 2 discussions and 37 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-26). **TL;DR:** Discussion of the trial result itself was largely positive (seen as a genuinely strong outcome), but the thread quickly spiraled into a heated political argument about RFK Jr., the Trump administration, and mRNA vaccine policy, plus a side debate on Moderna's stock reaction. **Sentiment:** 30% positive · 30% mixed · 40% skeptical **The case for** - Several commenters called the risk reduction a genuinely excellent, clinically meaningful result. - One person noted the absolute risk reduction (30% to 18%) would make a real difference if results hold in practice. - The vaccine platform was described as Moderna's original long-term vision rather than a COVID-era pivot. **The pushback** - Some argued current U.S. health leadership is hostile to mRNA vaccines and could hinder approval or funding. - Others pushed back hard, noting mRNA cancer vaccine funding hasn't actually been cut and accusing the original claim of being overstated. - Commenters questioned why trial data was held for a conference reveal instead of released immediately, though others explained this is normal practice. - Some speculated the stock drop reflected the market expecting an even more dramatic 'cure for cancer' result and being disappointed. **By community** - hackernews (heated): A promising trial result gets overshadowed by a long, contentious political argument about vaccine policy and administration officials, alongside milder debates on stock reaction and disclosure timing. **Hottest debate:** Whether the current U.S. administration and health officials are actively undermining mRNA vaccine development and deployment. **Open questions** - Will approval and real-world rollout proceed smoothly given the current regulatory and political environment? - Can Moderna/Merck scale the personalized manufacturing process needed for broader patient use? - Will the 42% relative risk reduction hold up in longer-term, real-world data? **Highlights** > Amazingly, when this (IMHO quite good) data leaked, Moderna stock took a huge drop: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/article/moderna-sto... (Seems like people were expecting absolutely incredible, "cure for cancer" results and had already bid up the price a lot in advance.) > — [zetazzed on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50235747) > Note that the trial was for “stage IIB–IV melanoma that had been surgically removed prior to entering the trial.” > lost my dad to cancer because of cancer medication Please don’t phrase it like this. Loss is hard. But desperate people have skipped treatment because they misread something online. > — [JumpCrisscross on hackernews · 3 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50236025) > I’m grateful you said this. Your comment led me down a path where I discovered it is essentially biologically impossible for his Lenalidomide to have caused stage 4 liver cancer in just a year. It turns out the liver cancer was a totally separate issue brewing silently for years, likely encouraged by a decade of TRT he was on. The severe skin issues he had a few years prior were early warning signs of his liver failing, but they got missed and masked by general dermatitis the myeloma diagnoses. Realizing the cancer meds weren't to blame actually brings me a ton of closure. I definitely don't want to scare anyone away from life-saving treatment based on my misunderstanding. Thank you. That isn’t to say there aren’t terrible tradeoffs that have to be faced in the course of cancer treatment, and much of medicine. Pharmaceuticals seem to beget pharmaceuticals. > — [reilly3000 on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50237075) > Moderna's business model was always to be an on-demand vaccine platform, meaning a cost-effective service for ordering a few doses of a fully custom personalized vaccine. Their infrastructure looks more like a just-in-time 3D printer service than like a traditional vaccine development lab. It was a happy accident that the platform was available when we needed to come up with a COVID vaccine rapidly, and that's what made them a household name (and wildly skewed their revenue mix from plan). But this cancer treatment is the sort of thing they had in mind all along. > — [wrs on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50235812) > First I agree RFK jr is the worst possible HHS secretary imaginable. There has been tons of funding pulled for mrna vaccine research for respiratory viruses which is terrible. That said: 1. Funding hasn't been pulled for mrna vaccines for cancer. rfk has been equivocal about the topic. NCI is stilling rewarding grants for mrna-vaccine cancer trials. 2. Pulling funding is different from blocking vaccines from reaching the market. The new season's covid vaccine is presumably an mrna vaccine. For cancer vaccines, it would be very strange to fund a vaccine just to block it from the market. Should we hold these people accountable? What do you mean? The court of public opinion seems to hold them accountable. Are you proposing legal punishments for Marc Andreessen? For what specifically? > — [nfw2 on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238427) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50235217) · 131 points · 37 comments - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50208265) · 6 points · 0 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Amping up T cells to target cancer](https://daily.dev/posts/amping-up-t-cells-to-target-cancer-9kzgfcilx) · MIT Technology Review · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [A new approach to cancer vaccination yields more powerful T cells](https://daily.dev/posts/a-new-approach-to-cancer-vaccination-yields-more-powerful-t-cells-cpohvm6nf) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Akeso lung cancer drug cuts death risk 34% in landmark trial](https://daily.dev/posts/akeso-lung-cancer-drug-cuts-death-risk-34-in-landmark-trial-an1i7ejqn) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Reprogrammed NK immune cells target cancer and autoimmune disorders](https://daily.dev/posts/reprogrammed-nk-immune-cells-target-cancer-and-autoimmune-disorders-ejla5ocwp) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#healthcare](https://daily.dev/tags/healthcare) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/moderna-and-merck-say-their-mrna-cancer-vaccine-cut-death-recurrence-by-42--nhocdwe1p) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Moderna and Merck say their mRNA cancer vaccine cut death, recurrence by 42%","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/moderna-and-merck-say-their-mrna-cancer-vaccine-cut-death-recurrence-by-42--nhocdwe1p","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/moderna-and-merck-say-their-mrna-cancer-vaccine-cut-death-recurrence-by-42--nhocdwe1p"},"datePublished":"2026-10-25T20:40:08.231Z","dateModified":"2026-10-26T02:56:19.322Z","description":"A personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine cut the risk of death or recurrence by 42 percent compared to standard treatment, Merck and Moderna announced. 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