Failed cancer vaccines might live again with new immune drugs

Using vaccines to fight cancer is a field littered with failures but experts believe it is possible the approach could get a new lease of life if such shots are combined with a new class of drugs called checkpoint inhibitors. Unlike traditional preventative vaccines, therapeutic cancer vaccines are designed for people with established disease and are supposed to boost the patient’s immune system to keep tumors at bay. Unfortunately, the theory has not worked out in practice because, while the vaccines are successful at triggering a response from the “foot soldiers” of the immune system, cancer cells still manage to escape detection. The result has been a series of failures with high-profile experimental cancer vaccines such as Merck KGaA’s Stimuvax and GlaxoSmithKline’s MAGE-A3. GSK threw in the towel on its vaccine in April, dashing hopes for a project that was once seen as a potential multibillion-dollar sales opportunity in lung cancer and melanoma. Johan Vansteenkiste...