An experimental cancer vaccine is being developed by Lansdale-centric Merck, with input from Moderna. The project’s mid-stage trials are showing promise in preventing relapses in melanoma patients, reported Brianna Abbott for The Wall Street Journal.

The results demonstrated progress for the two companies toward creating an injection that could ward off cancer by jump-starting the immune system.

At 18 months after receiving the personalized vaccine (along with Merck’s immunotherapy Keytruda), around 79 percent of high-risk melanoma patients were alive and cancer-free, compared with around 62 percent who received only immunotherapy.

The recently completed 157-person trial provides some of the strongest proof yet that such vaccines can help cancer patients.

“I am fairly encouraged that this will open up a whole new set of trials,” said Jeffrey Weber, the senior investigator on the trial and deputy director of the Perlmutter Cancer Center at New York University Langone Health.

Merck and Moderna representatives said they plan on expanding research into other types of tumors, such as non-small cell lung cancer. They also spoke of a larger study that would hopefully confirm the safety and efficacy of the vaccine in treating high-risk melanoma.

Read more about Merck in The Wall Street Journal.

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Video report on the Merck-Moderna skin cancer vaccine.