India, Aug. 20 -- Merck and Moderna announced on Wednesday morning that a bespoke mRNA cancer vaccine, given alongside Merck's blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda after surgery, significantly reduced disease recurrence and metastasis in patients whose high-risk melanoma had just been surgically removed, compared to Keytruda alone.

The Phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial enrolled 1,137 patients across stages IIB to IV - spanning thick tumours confined to the skin through to disease that had already reached distant organs before being surgically excised - and hit both its primary endpoint on recurrence-free survival and its main secondary milestone on distant metastasis. Interim analyses are scheduled early looks at the trial data by an independent...