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  • Hacker News
  • How are BioNtech's trials doing?

    Are these two companies the ones to cure cancer (for the rich, being that these therapies require custom bio engineering).

    by mancerayder
  • My father has gastric melonama and pretty much last few days left — does someone with knowledge know if this vaccine can be of any help? Or any registry available?
    by kinj28
  • Deepest sympathies, and I'm no oncologist - but I think that'd be like trying to patch the hull of the Titanic after her stern has lifted out of the water. So many cascading failures are in motion by then that saving him really isn't possible.
    by bell-cot
  • Ever since I first heard of them a decade ago, it seemed that mRNA therapeutic vaccines were going to be the next wave of massive improvements in care. It's taken a bit longer than I had expected, and it's not that mRNA is the only way to make these sorts of vaccines, it's just so much better than the alternatives.

    I'm very very excited to see what comes next.

    by epistasis
  • I wish people would find a decent source for these stories in order to post them on here instead of sending us to a tweet. I'm not on Twitterx and it's a mini nightmare on a mobile browser
    by trencedamp
  • Contrary to popular belief, twitter/x is completely fine.
    by dzhiurgis
  • I listened to a great podcast on this just a month ago - too bad that I thought all of this would obviously be priced in already… https://virological.podigee.io/51-21-cancer-vaccines-how-the...
    by MartinMond
  • Hard to price in the political factors now involved in Moderna's success or lack of success.
    by pipolo
  • I don't believe the efficient market hypothesis. However even if you do, new information has arrived and that will affect the price.
    by bluGill
  • It was priced in, the share price prior to the news being released was taking into account a probability measurement of the trial succeeding or failing. You can’t price in both options of a binary outcome simultaneously, so part of the equity price was functionally equivalent to a call option on the outcome of the drug trial that only resolved after the trial results are announced.

    It’s similar to the situation where a company puts out a public offer to buy another company at say, $50 a share on a day that the acquisition target is trading at $40/share.

    If the stock of the target company is trading at $46/share, the market is pricing in the probability of the acquisition not happening. If the market knew the acquisition would happen with 100% certainty, the price of the target company shares would be equal to the buyout share price offer. You can assume the risk of the acquisition not happening by purchasing shares at $46, and if it does end up going through, you earn $4 a share from assuming that risk.

    by quickthrowman
  • Even if you were to optimally price in all available information you still have uncertainty of what will actually happen. i.e. A 1 dollar coin flip has an expected value of 50c before it’s thrown and it will collapse either to zero or to one after the uncertainty is resolved.
    by henry2023
  • I think the "expected value" was priced in, but regardless of the result, this trial would move the stock price towards that direction.

    Biotech is one of the very very very few areas of the stockmarket where specialist knowledge generates alpha.

    Trolling through random biotechs, learning about their tech, and investing in the most promising applications of that tech in the most impactful areas is something that happens somewhat on publicly traded markets. With tech, most of that happens pre-IPO.

    by epistasis
  • This appears to be a potentially huge win for health. The market has Moderna up 153% at time of writing, which is some sort of validation I suppose.

    Related stories:

    https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/merck-and-modernas-per...

    https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/merck-moderna-say-m...

    https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/moderna-merck-vaccine-succ...

    by consumer451
  • oh nice. If it goes up another 100% I may not lose money on this stock anymore.
    by Jyaif
  • For a while (like a year+ ago), the shares were trading around cash value. But they were burning through cash. Happy it’s worked out for them!
    by Scoundreller
  • I got my first one at age 27. A third just got removed. Living with the constant mole vigilance of that is rough, but I am glad I've learned to identify them. I think knowing the ABCDEs of it should be more widely spread, as removing a mole is a much nicer alternative to having to take margins in a highly mobile place.
    by ijustlovemath
  • Agreed. As a reminder here are the ABCDE arguments to get extra worried about a mole.

    Asymetrical (shape of the mole)

    Border (irregular? Unclear delimitation?)

    Color (has it multiple colors?)

    Diameter (has it a >6mm diameter? An indicator that it might start vertical growth iirc)

    Evolution (has it changed recently?)

    by Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe
  • Will this targeted approach be beneficial to other cancer types? Is there any data or theory about this class of drugs as a more general therapy?
    by danjl
  • Individualized immune cancer therapy has been touted as the next big thing for half a century. It's nothing new, and with few exceptions, such as skin cancer, has failed to yield much. scientists, for decades, have tired to harness the immune system to attackcancer and it almost never works.
    by paulpauper
  • mRNA is a general technique for targeted cancer therapy. It's the message RNA containing the instructions from a gene to create a specific protein. It's much easier to work with, reprogrammed, manufactured, and delivered. There're a number of approaches to use mRNA against cancer cells. One is using cancer related antigens, similar to the vaccine approach. mRNA is programmed to generate the antigen proteins in the body, which are attached to the cancer cells. The body's T-cells can then attack the tagged cancer cells.

    The problem now is finding the correct antigens targeting the cancer cell type. Cancer cells are similar to health cells. You don't want to program a mRNA to generate antigen proteins that target health cells, which causes autoimmune problems.

    by ww520
  • Yes, mRNA vaccines are promising for many but not all cancer types, and there are many ongoing clinical trials. There's also a lot we yet don't know about how to design them.

    Here's a great blog post on this, "How to build a cancer vaccine, and whether they will work this time": https://www.owlposting.com/p/how-to-build-a-cancer-vaccine-a...

    Here's the blog post I wrote on personalized mRNA vaccines: https://hedonicescalator.substack.com/p/did-paul-conyngham-r...

    by HedonicEscal8r
  • Huge, uplifting, news, hope the study will bear further fruit. Considering that 90% of all clinical trials fail, it's good to read about a truly promising one for once.
    by nearbyyak
  • My father is currently dying of malignant melanoma with brain metastasis...

    I wish this treatment was available a few years ago.

    by hummuscience
  • I'm so sorry to hear that, but thank you for sharing your story to highlight the importance of this!
    by onlyrealcuzzo
  • That is devastating. How are you doing?
    by exolymph
  • Immune therapy didn't help? Darn.
    by pfdietz
  • My dad died 30 years ago after it spread to his liver. He was in the study at duke for what is today the standard treatment line for immunotherapy. I hope he was able to help. He died 9 months after his diagnosis.

    Enjoy the time you have with him now and be grateful for all the years you've had. Nothing is going to make the loss of a parent "OK" and it will hurt no matter if you see it coming like you are or it's a surprise.

    Remember to breathe.

    by leetrout
  • Substantially better link:

    https://www.merck.com/news/merck-and-moderna-announce-phase-...

    Still no actual Phase 3 data presented.

    by amluto
  • This content is geo/IP fenced
    by anotherpaul
  • Yes, however the trial succeeded. But by "how much", is not yet released. This trial was not against placebo, but the already existing, and effective Keytruda treatment.
    by ricardobayes