Replies to post #256240 on Biotech Values

[mouton29]

The WAPO article is reporting on a recent Nature article, available here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09655-y

Here's part of the main discussion:

Here we report that the innate immune response to SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccination resets the cancer immunotherapy cycle and primes adaptive immunity for synergy with ICIs. We found that receipt of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine within 100?days of ICI initiation was associated with substantial improvements in overall survival (OS) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and melanoma. In preclinical models, we found that this effect required a surge in type-I interferon (IFN) that enhanced antigen-presenting cell (APC) priming of T cells in lymphoid organs. Although tumour cells subvert these primed responses by increasing PD-L1 expression, co-administration of ICIs sustains T cell responses and elicits epitope spreading against tumour-associated antigens. We revealed analogous response correlates for humans receiving COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, including heightened IFNa production, innate/adaptive immune activation and increases in tumour PD-L1 expression. Together, our results demonstrate that clinically available mRNA vaccines targeting non-tumour antigens are potent immune modulators capable of sensitizing tumours to ICIs.

[mouton29]

the LNP also acts as an adjuvant

That made me wonder whether they detected any benefit from other non-mRNA vaccines, as some of them are adjuvanted, e.g., I believe flu vaccines for 65+ are often adjuvanted. But there was no evidence of this in the data base examined in the Nature article:

Likewise, patients who received a pneumonia or influenza vaccine within 100 days of initiating ICI (Extended Data Fig. 2b–e) and those with resectable stage III tumours (Extended Data Fig. 2f,g) experienced no improvement in survival.