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A groundbreaking immunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is being trialed in the UK for the first time, with the NIHR UCLH Clinical Research Facility (CRF) as the lead research site. Developed by German biotech firm BioNTech, the new vaccine, named BNT116, can prime the immune system to recognise and combat cancer cells. Janusz Racz, a 67-year-old lung cancer patient from London, was the first participant to receive this new vaccine. According to Siow Ming Lee, a UCLH consultant medical oncologist who is leading the national study, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, with an estimated 1.8 million deaths reported in 2020 "We are now entering this very exciting new era of mRNA-based immunotherapy clinical trials to investigate the treatment of lung cancer," he said. Supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at UCLH, the study aims to evaluate the safety and tolerance of the immunotherapy, its efficacy in targeting tumours on its own, and its potential to enhance the effectiveness of established chemotherapy or immunotherapy treatments.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has awarded marketing authorisation to CStone Pharmaceuticals for sugemalimab (Eqjubi) as a first-line treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the UK. NSCLC is the most common form of lung cancer, accounting for around 80 to 85 out of 100 cases. Sugemalimab is now approved as a first-line treatment, in combination with platinum-based chemotherapy, for adult patients with metastatic NSCLC who do not have EGFR-sensitive mutations or ALK, ROS1, or RET genomic alterations. This UK approval follows its recent authorisation by the European Commission, marking the second international approval for sugemalimab. CStone's CEO Dr. Jason Yang described the UK's approval as a significant milestone in their global expansion strategy. "Sugemalimab is the first domestic anti-PD-L1 antibody to receive approval outside of China and has already entered the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market, the EU. "Now, with the UK approval, sugemalimab continued to expand its presence in the European market. The long-term survival data, recently presented at this year's ESMO Congress, further confirmed sugemalimab's value in the frontline treatment landscape for metastatic NSCLC," he said.

Thousands of lung cancer patients in England will benefit from a ground-breaking new drug that can reduce the risk of relapse. This follows a deal brokered by NHS England and approval from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for atezolizumab therapy to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). More than 850 patients are expected to be eligible for the drug in the first year, rising to more than 1000 in the third year. It is the first immunotherapy approved for patients with early-stage NSCLC who have undergone surgery and chemotherapy. Clinical trials have shown that atezolizumab can reduce the risk of cancer relapse or death by 34 per cent in patients with early-stage NSCLC.