Putin claims Russia is close to creating cancer vaccines

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, February 14, announced that Russian scientists are close to creating vaccines for cancer that could soon be available to patients. 

In televised remarks, Putin stated that “we have come very close to the creation of so-called cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs of a new generation”. “I hope that soon they will be effectively used as methods of individual therapy,” he said at a future technology symposium in Moscow.

He however did not disclose which cancer types the proposed vaccines would target or how they would be administered.

A number of countries and companies are working on cancer vaccines. Last year, the UK government signed an agreement with Germany-based BioNTech to launch clinical trials providing “personalized cancer treatments,” aiming to reach 10,000 patients by 2030.

Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck & Co are developing an experimental cancer vaccine that a mid-stage study showed cut the chance of recurrence or death from melanoma – the most deadly skin cancer – by half after three years of treatment.

There are currently six licensed vaccines against human papillomaviruses (HPV) that cause many cancers, including cervical cancer, according to the World Health Organization, as well as vaccines against hepatitis B (HBV), which can lead to liver cancer.