Cancer Jab Delivers Remarkable Trial Results

A new cancer jab has produced strong responses in patients with advanced head and neck cancer in the United Kingdom, offering hope to people whose disease had stopped responding to existing treatments.

“These are unprecedentedly strong responses in patients whose disease has become resistant to both chemotherapy and immunotherapy,” said Professor Kevin Harrington, Professor of Biological Cancer Therapies at the Institute of Cancer Research and Consultant Oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.

In an international trial involving 102 patients across 11 countries, tumours shrank or disappeared completely in 43 participants after treatment with amivantamab. Among them, 15 patients saw their tumours eradicated. The injection targets cancer in three ways: by blocking two key growth pathways and by helping the immune system attack tumour cells. Given once every three weeks as a simple injection under the skin, the treatment caused mostly mild to moderate side effects and is now being evaluated in dozens of clinical trials for several cancer types, including lung, colorectal, brain and gastric cancers.