Persuading COVID vaccine maker BioNTech to come to the UK is a win for the Department of Health, but with the NHS struggling to provide existing treatments, experts are tempering their enthusiasm.
BioNTech is set to build a new lab in Cambridge, employing 75 staff and aiming to carry out 10,000 mRNA clinical trials. File picBioNTech has signed a deal with the UK government to enrol up to 10,000 patients in clinical trials by the end of 2030 for personalised cancer therapies.Vaccines based on mRNA were the standout success of the COVID-19 pandemic. And persuading BioNTech, the company which pioneered them, to come to the UK is a coup for the Department of Health.
Designing mRNA vaccines against cancer is a very different challenge to COVID. But before the pandemic, cancer was the main area of research for BioNTech and Moderna.Because mRNA is basically a re-coded form of DNA, it's relatively quick and easy to convert a sample of DNA from a patient's cancer into an mRNA vaccine to give them. But so far immunotherapies aren't perfect.For drug companies, the NHS offers a perfect environment to work out the scientific kinks in cancer vaccines.
Yet with delays to cancer diagnoses and treatment, the NHS is struggling to provide existing treatments, let alone have much hope of benefitting from new ones.
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