Lung cancer treatment: New vaccine trial begins at University College London Hospitals

A groundbreaking immunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is being trialed in the UK for the first time, with the NIHR UCLH Clinical Research
Facility (CRF) as the lead research site.

Developed by German biotech firm BioNTech, the new vaccine, named BNT116, can prime the immune system to recognise and combat cancer cells.

Janusz Racz, a 67-year-old lung cancer patient from London, was the first participant to receive this new vaccine.

According to Siow Ming Lee, a UCLH consultant medical oncologist who is leading the national study, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths
worldwide, with an estimated 1.8 million deaths reported in 2020

“We are now entering this very exciting new era of mRNA-based immunotherapy clinical trials to investigate the treatment of lung cancer,” he said.

Supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at UCLH, the study aims to evaluate the safety and tolerance of the immunotherapy, its efficacy in targeting
tumours on its own, and its potential to enhance the effectiveness of established chemotherapy or immunotherapy treatments.