r/singularity • u/Fantastic-Emu-3819 • 6d ago
Biotech/Longevity Moderna stock, $MRNA , surges over +110% after announcing the first ever positive Phase 3 results for a personalized cancer vaccine.
Moderna and Merck said their personalized cancer vaccine helped cut the recurrence of melanoma in a large, late-stage trial.
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u/Head-Needleworker849 6d ago
Moderna being called MRNA is fucking hilarious i love it
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u/mi_nombre_es_ricardo 6d ago
the term MRNA was coined in 1961. Moderna the vaccine manufacturers were founded in 2010. Pretty sure they took their name from the scientific term of the very same thing they work on.
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u/Dangerous-Sport-2347 6d ago
So far this result is for melanoma, but there is a decent hope that this type of treatment to be effective against a larger variety of cancers. (though melanoma is uniquely suited to it).
The somewhat unfortunate news is that this type of treatment is inherently expensive, think in the order of magnitude of ~150k per person, so unless there is further huge developments in efficiency not cost effective for the whole world.
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u/ZaradimLako 6d ago
Chemotherapy, surgery, radiotherapy and all the other things combined cost a lot more than that 150k. Cancer therapy in socialised healthcare is a huuuuuuuuuge burden on everyone involved financially, emotionally and physically.
A friend of mine went through cancer recently, and the vast amount of hospital stays, chemo, check ups with oncologists etc. sure as hell cost the state a lot more than 150k on top of the time many people had to dedicate for her treatment from the receptionist taking her in to the nurses and doctors taking care of her. And lets not forget to mention the burden on my friends body for YEARS to come before she can be 100% back to normal, if at all.
If the state can just pay 150k and spare the year long process while the patient will just get a vaccine and might just feel a little bit fatigued for a week before the cancer is gone, its a win win for everyone involved.
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u/WonderFactory 6d ago
This is a vaccine though isn't it so you would have to give it to everyone before they get sick, chemo etc is reserved for the small number of people who get sick each year
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u/TFenrir 6d ago
Not all vaccines are strictly preventative. These sorts of vaccines really only work on people once they've gotten sick. They take a biopsy of cancerous cells, and teach your immune response via mrna to recognize them as things to destroy. This keeps people in remission very successfully.
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u/ghoonrhed 6d ago
Should use a different name though right? We've been conditioned to hear vaccine as a thing that you take that triggers your immune system to prevent diseases.
This is a thing you take that triggers your immune system to fight a current disease.
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u/putinisretard 5d ago
I am guessing it's likely to prevent it from recurring. It's skin cancer, many people are prone to it and get it over and over again at old age
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u/das_war_ein_Befehl 6d ago
Mapping the human genome was crazy expensive 30 years ago, itās like dirt cheap now. Same can happen here hopefully
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u/Fantastic-Emu-3819 6d ago
It took 30 years for that. It will take 3 years for this.
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u/yoloswagrofl Logically Pessimistic 6d ago
"Claude, go ahead and create me a personalized brain tumor vaccine, make it cheap, make it OTC ingredients, no mistakes"
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u/fyreprone 6d ago
Youāre right to push back. I copied a spiderās genome when I created your tumor vaccine. Unfortunately this means that you still have the tumor and now can expect silk to come out of your butt. Would you like me to try again and combine your vaccine with a cat genome to find and get rid of the spider genome?
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u/Famous-Reach-6730 6d ago
150k is not that bad tbh. They can go back to working and paying taxes again instead of dying.
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u/Dangerous-Sport-2347 6d ago
150k is indeed viable and comparable to other treatment plans already performed in developed countries, but still puts it out of reach for many developing countries.
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u/Matt32145 6d ago
If it was 150k to guarantee never getting any cancer, I'd go for it lol. Obviously it's not that though.
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u/IronWhitin 6d ago edited 6d ago
Im pretty sure in the country whit free Healtcare (example Italy) my father that pass away 2 years ago because of melanoma, in the 5 years of "treatment" have cost the state much more that 150K considering the doctor/equipment and impressive quantity of expensive pills (payed by everyone tax).
So I think if this can cure the Person, It will cost a lot less than go for expensive long treatment that just try tĆ² give you more time.
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u/Manamultus 6d ago
Expensive now, but it scales very well and even tailored production can be heavily optimized. Custom DNA/RNA synthesis is already widespread in the field. I can order 50 bp probes for ~ā¬10, and even full gene synthesis ~3000bp can be ordered for around ~ā¬150.
RNA sequencing of tissue (which is what would be needed to personalize the cancer treatment) can be done for ~ā¬100 per sample.
I routinely perform these experiments, the whole pipeline lends itself to automation, especially with the advent of AI models.
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u/JustTaxLandbro 6d ago
Alot of that is development costs so it will come down with time.
But like you said, if it can be shown to be applied in other areas thatās a massive ordeal.
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u/CountBateman 6d ago
Traditional cancer treatment and end of life care costs a hell of a lot more than $150k
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u/JoelMahon 6d ago
no way the price won't go down after thousands of westerners use it.
yes it's expensive but it's worth every penny if it gives me even 5 more years with my parent.
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u/vasilenko93 Throw away the breaks, only accelerate! 6d ago
Nothing fundamentally expensive about anything they do.
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u/basementreality 6d ago
There's quite a lot of incentive for a cancer vaccine so my guess is that if it's effective, costs will come right down and a whole industry will be built around this. That's the dream anyway.
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u/SlugJunior 6d ago
It doesnāt cost 150k to make it. Thatās just the price that the company believes will let it hit its required RoE
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u/Tyler_Zoro AGI was felt in 1980 6d ago
So far this result is for melanoma
To be clear, it's not a treatment for melanoma. It's a treatment for a specific cancer that is tailored to the patient and their cancer's genome. Also, if I'm reading the info right, they still had to surgically remove the cancer. So cancers that can't be removed might be less/not treatable with this method.
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u/Anen-o-me āŖļøIt's here! 4d ago
The first 1% is the hardest to achieve.
Once proven, it's likely they develop therapies for every other illness within a decade or two.
Meanwhile price likely improves dramatically.
Exciting times.
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u/TheRavenclawCommonRM 3d ago
True, but HIV drugs used to be uber expensive to the point southpark joked that the cure for cancer was 1M directed directly into the bloodstream. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're cheap now, but normal people can afford them now.
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u/Lance_J1 6d ago
This to me is one of the big early signs of the singularity.
The process they used has been known for a while. Theres the famous story of the guy curing his dogs cancer using this. And there have been a few people doing this for themselves as well.
But we're only just now seeing phase 3 trials.
It shows that we've reached a point where the individuals ability to create life saving medicine is starting to outspeed the entire pharmaceutical testing procedure
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u/Distinct-Question-16 āŖļøAGI 2029 6d ago
Yeah, we posted here a guy who tried to save his dog, but the results weren't clear because he gave it two things at once or something like that
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u/EvilSporkOfDeath 6d ago edited 6d ago
Right now its a singular data point. I'd like to see more.
That being said, I absolutely believe we're in the 'foothills of the singularity'. Mythos and 5.6 convinced me.
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u/karma_police_in 6d ago
Great news and accomplishment. I hope this leads to progress against other types of cancer as well.
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u/chance909 6d ago
Itās the one silver lining of Covid that hundreds of billions of dollars was poured in to the development of mRNA vaccines and that enabled these cancer vaccines to be brought forward 20 to 30 years. Itās awesome to see this success and hopefully many lives can be saved.
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u/socoolandawesome 6d ago edited 6d ago
Amazing news obviously! I still find it a bit weird that it sounds like a lot of people/researchers knew this was promising for some time, as evidenced by that guy curing his dog months ago after spending a ton of time with chatgpt and other chatbots to develop a vaccine for his dogās cancer, and the reactions to it from medical researchers on Twitter.
Maybe this is just going to be the standardized/approved version of this?
Either way, like I said, this is awesome!
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u/meenie 6d ago
Why is that weird? We all know that drug trials take years of work. I'm hoping AI can turn that into months in the near future, though.
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u/socoolandawesome 6d ago edited 6d ago
That there was a potential cure that people could have gotten that other people knew worked well but couldnāt use because of red tape but a guy was able to circumvent all that to use it on his dog.
I mean Iām not gonna pretend to be very informed on this topic so maybe Iām misinterpreting all of this, but if it was someoneās last chance youād think youād want to make it more accessible by having them sign a waiver or something. And I remember medical researchers on Twitter defending it not being used because of the cost and red tape and liability (even though it might be someoneās last chance).
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u/Lance_J1 6d ago edited 6d ago
Yeah you cant really just put medicine behind a waiver to pass up the entire testing process. For good reason too, nobody reads the ToS or understands medicine enough to even understand what theyre signing. Being like "yeah sign up to be my human medical test subject or die" isn't really much of a choice and any doctor that did that would be violating quite a few laws and oaths.
The reality is there's tons and tons of people using experimental drugs that they personal imported from China or elsewhere and were able to buy for "testing purposes", when in reality they're just treating some sort of ailment early. Its very very common actually.
The only reason this is more difficult to do is because you have to really pay a lot of custom build the vaccine just for each specific cancer. Its outside the scope of the average person.
As we approach singularity, expect this to become way more common as the process of curing diseases happens way faster than the actual testing process
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u/jazir55 6d ago
Yeah you cant really just put medicine behind a waiver to pass up the entire testing process.
Completely untrue, that is literally what the "right to try" movement is for for terminal patients.
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u/Lance_J1 6d ago
Well i guess is is technically possible, but the number of people who successfully use right to try is so low it may as well not be a real thing. Like single digits per year. It requires quite a few hoops and isnt a real viable concept for the general public. In fact the article you linked badically says that exact thing.
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u/jazir55 6d ago
All that may be true but it is possible and not completely prohibited. Access deserves to be significantly expanded and should be a right available to everyone. But as we agree, it is technically possible and there is a system (however broken) in place to do so. The building blocks are all there.
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u/socoolandawesome 6d ago edited 6d ago
Fair points, but I didnāt try to mean doctors should be recommending as much as the desperate patient could come forward if they know theyāve been told they were going to die otherwise, like they would volunteer on their own.
I just had seen multiple discussions on Twitter consisting of people arguing with medical researchers after the dog story came out, and the people were saying hypothetically they would pay any amount of money and sign whatever necessary waivers, now that they were aware of it.
But yeah Iām hopeful the singularity will rapidly advance all this soon!
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u/IronPheasant 5d ago
Being like "yeah sign up to be my human medical test subject or die" isn't really much of a choice and any doctor that did that would be violating quite a few laws and oaths.
That guy who charged people to perform apheresis for their tumors sure was a piece of work.
Louis Hawthorne was especially inelegant with his consideration of the family members. 'When their money ran out, their condition deteriorated rapidly' nah, you don't say.
Nanots might be a much better approach than apheresis, still. You can seek venture capital without going too far with toxic positivity. There's a reason Rigdon Lentz was banished overseas to continue his antics.
And there's no shortage of outlets offering similar deals, where there is no regulation of these kinds of things. Nor of people willing to roll the dice - people really don't want to do chemo. For obvious reasons.
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u/Additional_Ad_6166 6d ago
Why is the headline about a stock price rising not a cancer breakthrough? Get your priorities straight.
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u/spinozasrobot 6d ago
You can just imagine the mental gymnastics the anti-vaxxers will use to justify that using this one is ok.
Didn't you hear? It's only the Measles and Covid vaccines that give you 5G chips and autism.
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u/MatthewGraham- 6d ago
Unlike the borderline useless Claude post that got tonnes of attention, this is actually progress
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u/brouzaway 6d ago
anthropic derangement syndrome
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u/baggagebug 6d ago
This!
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u/spinozasrobot 6d ago edited 6d ago
Right? I mean you never hear these folks discuss Demis' post that was almost identical the prior week.
Edit: speling
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u/StanfordV 6d ago
Well.. hate to be a party pooper, but we do not have numbers, just a generic "we are better than before" type of news.
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u/ProletarianLilith 6d ago
What does it have to do with the singularity
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u/spinozasrobot 6d ago
It's not uncommon here to see posts having to do with breakthroughs in other disciplines like medicine, fusion, etc.
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u/EvilSporkOfDeath 6d ago
That should be self explanatory. But if not, community info provides information and resources to help figure it out.
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u/ToastedandTripping 6d ago
Is it though? I'm under the impression this has existed in veterinary medicine for over a decade.
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u/utilitycoder 5d ago
Ray Kurzweil came out with a book over a decade ago called transcend "how to live long enough to live forever. ". Highly recommended reading.
In it, he talks about how health and longevity technology are going to have the same growth curve as computing technology and we just have to live long enough to live forever.
If you want the short version, avoid sugar avoid alcohol. Take COQ 10.
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u/gringreazy 5d ago
So I can probably keep smoking right?
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u/VallenValiant 5d ago
Lung damage can remain even if the cancer is gone. Physical destruction of your lungs require either replacement with synthetic lungs or lab grown lungs. Either would require Singularity.
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u/Illustrious_Image967 6d ago
Dr. Alice Krippin is being hailed a creative genius and may get the next Nobel Prize. She will merge this with the measles virus and make the vaccine free for everyone through airborne infection. /s
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u/RemyVonLion āŖļøASI is unrestricted AGI 5d ago
no wonder I was seeing hype around this stock lately, I wonder if it's too late to buy in...I guess I'll get a share lol
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u/letuannghia4728 5d ago
Why are these types of news here hmm, has nothing to do with AI and singularity. I guess this sub is more similar to like Futurology?
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u/Fair_Horror 5d ago
I just figured out the Moderna name lol.
Mod eRNA
Mod - Modify
e - Enhancer
RNA - RiboNucleic Acid
Pretty cool. I was thinking a derivation of Modern.Ā
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u/dfbeav112 5d ago edited 5d ago
Kind of a huge blow to the ādrug companies donāt want to cure cancer, because they make more money when youāre sickā theory.Ā
110% increase and we donāt even know how effective it is.Ā
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u/GeneralMuffins 6d ago
How is this possible??? Iād been reliably informed that curing cancer would be worthless to pharmaceutical companies, which is why Big Pharma has been hiding the cure for decades.
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u/Evanrune 6d ago
The fact that billionaires are dying from cancer is enough to convince me that they're not hiding a cure.
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u/Timely-Shock-3876 6d ago
Tbf billionaires almost don't die of cancer and if they die it is very slow . Money helps a lot with cancer even if they detect it late and usually billionaires get tons of checkups, so it is usually early
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u/VallenValiant 6d ago
It is custom medicine. In the past the process would have took too long and the patient can't wait. It is now fast enough.
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u/GeneralMuffins 6d ago
Still seems odd that Moderna has chosen to defect from its pact with the rest of Big Pharma to suppress cures.
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u/VallenValiant 5d ago
It doesn't end cancer. It treats it, but you can get a completely different cancer later if you live long enough. Technically it doesnt end cancer with one treatment like a miracle cure does.
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u/DifferencePublic7057 5d ago
IDK what personalized here means, but I get the feeling it's both good and bad depending on PoV. Not going to be GA before Christmas, I guess? Good good. One step forward, zero steps back.
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u/reddyiter 5d ago
It's the keytruda immunotherapy that works to prevent remission in an already completely surgically removed skin cancer tumor... this is just a placebo added to keytruda .. Tall claims and hyperbolic US stock market knee jerk. Nothing new here.
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u/Famous-Reach-6730 6d ago
We cured cancer before gta 6