Shares of Moderna MRNA, BioNTech BNTX and Novavax NVAX rose on Friday after a New York Times (NYT) report detailed a planned National Institutes of Health (NIH)-backed initiative to accelerate the development of personalized cancer vaccines.
What’s Going On?
Per the NYT report, the NIH is preparing a public-private partnership with researchers, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, advocacy groups and other stakeholders to accelerate the development of personalized cancer vaccines. The initiative aims to make new resources available to pursue promising ideas that might otherwise not receive the same level of support.
The program is expected to begin in December 2026, initially focusing on pancreatic, liver and colorectal cancers, as well as a subset of pediatric tumors.
The initiative draws inspiration from the public-private partnership that helped accelerate the development of COVID vaccines. However, cancer vaccines are expected to take considerably longer to develop. The ultimate goal is to make cancer vaccines broadly available within seven to 10 years, compared with the eight to 15 years it can otherwise take to obtain FDA approval.
These details were shared by Dr. Anthony Letai, director of the National Cancer Institute, and Stacey Adam, a senior clinical officer at the Foundation for the NIH.
Vaccine-Makers in Focus
Shares of Moderna jumped 14% on Friday, while BioNTech gained more than 5%. Both companies are developing their respective cancer vaccines. Novavax shares also surged 15.8%, despite the company not developing any cancer vaccines.
Interest in cancer vaccines received a boost in August, when Moderna announced positive phase III results for its individualized mRNA-based cancer therapy, which is being developed in collaboration with Merck MRK. The study met its primary endpoint of recurrence-free survival and a key secondary endpoint of distant metastasis-free survival in certain patients with high-risk melanoma. Detailed results are expected later this month.
Unlike conventional vaccines that prevent diseases, cancer vaccines are designed to treat existing tumors by training the immune system to recognize and attack abnormal proteins specific to a patient's cancer. As a result, Moderna describes its candidate as an individualized neoantigen therapy, rather than a cancer vaccine, to better reflect its approach.
BioNTech is also working on its own individualized mRNA-based cancer therapy in partnership with Roche RHHBY.
Shares of Merck and Roche were also up 2.3% and 1.4%, respectively, on Friday, also attributed to the NYT report. Moderna’s shares also benefited from a separate catalyst on Friday, when it joined the Nasdaq-100 before the opening bell.
Our Take
The planned NIH initiative could accelerate cancer-vaccine research by bringing together government agencies, researchers and drugmakers. It could also provide fresh momentum to mRNA-based cancer research, which has faced funding cuts under the Trump administration.
However, sustained growth for companies in this space will ultimately depend on their ability to demonstrate clinical success and advance their candidates toward regulatory approval. If these therapies prove successful in larger studies, personalized cancer treatments could emerge as a key long-term growth opportunity for companies such as Moderna and BioNTech.
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