Russian President Vladimir Putin commented that Russia is on the verge of developing a cancer vaccine. He also said that patients can get this vaccine very soon.
Russian scientists are said to be close to developing a cancer vaccine and it could soon be available to patients, President Putin said.
“We are very close to developing new generation cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs,” he said on Wednesday.
Speaking at a Moscow forum on future technologies, the Russian president added, “I hope that soon this vaccine will be effectively used as a method of medical therapy for patients.”
However, Putin did not specify exactly which types of cancer the proposed vaccines would target or how they would be treated.
Apart from Russia, many countries and companies around the world are working on cancer vaccines. Last year the UK government signed a deal with German-based BioEntech to launch clinical trials to provide ‘personalized cancer treatments’. The country has set a target of reaching 10,000 patients by 2030.
In addition, pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck & Company are also developing an experimental cancer vaccine. In a mid-stage study of the vaccine’s effectiveness, patients with melanoma had a halved chance of recurrence or death after three years of treatment. Basically, melanoma is the deadliest skin cancer.
According to the World Health Organization, there are currently six licensed vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV causes many types of cancer, including cervical cancer. There is also a vaccine against hepatitis B (HBV), which can cause liver cancer.
