Merck-Moderna Vaccine Helps Keep Patients Free From Skin Cancer

Adding a personalized cancer vaccine to the blockbuster drug Keytruda kept more melanoma patients in remission than the immune therapy alone, co-developers Moderna Inc. and Merck & Co. said in their first detailed presentation of a key study.

About 79% of people who received both treatments stayed cancer-free 18 months later in a mid-stage trial, compared to 62% of people who received only Merck’s Keytruda, the companies said Sunday at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. Side effects with the vaccine were generally mild, such as fatigue, they said.

The cancer vaccine is an ...