The German laboratory BioNtech, which has developed one of the innovative vaccines against Covid-19, will conduct clinical trials in Great Britain of cancer treatments based on the same messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, announced the company on Friday. The goal is to treat up to 10,000 patients with personalized mRNA-based cancer immunotherapies by 2030, BioNTech said in a statement.
The project is part of an agreement with the UK government covering “cancer immunotherapies, infectious disease vaccines and the expansion of BioNTech’s presence in the UK”, according to the report. business. The German laboratory, one of the pioneers in the development of mRNA, will also open a new research and development center of around 70 people in Cambridge, and set up a regional headquarters in London.
“Our goal is to accelerate the development of immunotherapies and vaccines using technologies that we have been researching for more than 20 years,” BioNTech CEO and co-founder Ugur Sahin said in the statement.
Trials in fall 2023
The company, which has established itself on the international scene with the discovery of one of the first vaccines against Covid-19 developed with the American Pfizer, is working on the manufacture of new vaccines and treatments, in particular against cancer, malaria. , shingles, tuberculosis. “The agreement means that cancer patients will have early access to trials exploring personalized messenger RNA therapies,” the UK Department of Health said in a separate statement.
The amount of the investment linked to this partnership has not been disclosed. A first phase will identify a “large number” of cancer patients who could be eligible for trials and explore potential vaccines for “several types of cancer”, detailed the British Ministry of Health.
Trials could begin as early as fall 2023.