- Dame Kate Bingham said experimental technology is the way to beat cancer
Former Covid vaccine tsar Dame Kate Bingham has urged the NHS to start trials of cancer vaccines which she believes will save thousands of lives.
Dame Kate said the experimental technology, which trains the immune system to hunt cancer cells, will be “ultimately how we go about treating this terrible disease”.
The venture capitalist said she imagined a future where Britons received “blood tests in Boots” to detect the disease early and then received a vaccine “at an early stage before the cancer takes hold”.
She added that she was proud the UK was the first country to administer Covid jabs and said she would “love for this to be exactly the same with cancer vaccines”.
However, Dame Kate warned that Britain was in danger of falling behind other countries because the NHS was not giving researchers time to carry out clinical trials.
Former Covid vaccine tsar Dame Kate Bingham (pictured) urged the NHS to start trials of cancer vaccines which she believes will save thousands of lives.
His comments came after the announcement last week that the first personalized vaccine for melanoma skin cancer was being trialed in NHS patients. Early results suggest the vaccine can dramatically improve the chances of survival for patients with this disease, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
Trials are also underway for patients with lung, liver, kidney, bowel and pancreatic cancer.
Cancer experts have claimed the UK is entering a “cancer renaissance” with personalized injections to combat some of the deadliest tumors expected by 2030.
The vaccines are designed to target specific genetic mutations found in cancer cells. This means that if the cancer comes back, the immune system will detect it immediately and destroy the cells before they have time to spread.
Data published last year found that melanoma patients who received the new shot along with another immune-boosting drug were half as likely to die or have their cancer return after three years, compared with those who took only immunotherapy.
Cancer experts have claimed the UK is entering a “cancer renaissance” with personalized injections to combat some of the deadliest tumors expected by 2030 (file photo)
Vaccines are designed to target specific genetic mutations found in cancer cells (file photo)
Dame Kate chaired the government’s Covid vaccines taskforce between May and December 2020, which was responsible for sourcing jabs to protect people in the UK from the virus.
Speaking last Wednesday at the Grand National Cancer Vaccine Summit, organized by health events firm Convenzis, he said cancer vaccines would likely be administered in the form of nasal sprays or skin patches to make them affordable.
Dame Kate pointed to research by the National Audit Office which concluded that implementing Covid jabs, including purchasing equipment and hiring staff, costs more than developing vaccines. “That cannot be a sustainable way to run a mass vaccination program,” she said.
Dame Kate also raised concerns about the fall in the number of clinical trials being carried out in the NHS over the past five years.
Studies suggest there has been a 40 percent reduction in new clinical trials since 2017. This is largely because hospitals, which can decide whether to submit patients for trials, were focusing on clearing waiting lists. record.
“(Doctors) are doing clinical trials at night and on weekends because they realize it’s the right thing to do,” he said. ‘That is simply not acceptable. There needs to be full recognition that trials need to be done quickly.’
However, experts say cancer vaccines could be a game-changer.
Dr Lennard Lee, a cancer vaccine expert at the University of Oxford, said there were now 12 drugmakers testing cancer vaccines in the UK. He added: “We are already earning a reputation as the best country in the world for developing cancer vaccines.”
