Amazon is working with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre to develop cancer vaccines in a new clinical trial aimed at finding “personalised vaccines” for breast cancer and melanoma.
The phase one trial is recruiting 20 people over 18 to study the safety of the vaccines, according to CNBC.
The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre and University of Washington Cancer Consortium are the researchers of the clinical trial, and Amazon is a collaborator, reports Medscape.
“Amazon is contributing scientific and machine learning expertise to a partnership with Fred Hutch to explore the development of a personalised treatment for certain forms of cancer,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC.
“It’s very early, but Fred Hutch recently received permission from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to go ahead with a phase one clinical trial, and it's unclear whether it will be successful,” the spokesperson said.
“This will be a long, multi-year process. Should it progress, we would be open to working with other organisations in healthcare and life sciences that might also be interested in similar efforts.”
In recent years, Amazon has increased its presence in the healthcare industry, CNBC reported. The company launched an online pharmacy in 2020, developed a telehealth service called Amazon Care, and released its own COVID-19 test during the pandemic.
A research and development group inside Amazon, known as Grand Challenge, oversaw the company’s early cancer vaccine effort, which is now under the purview of a cancer research team.
The study began recruiting patients on 9 June and the first phase is expected to run until November 2023.
The phase one trial will study the safety of personalised vaccines to treat patients with late-stage melanoma or hormone receptor-positive HER2-negative breast cancer, which has either spread to other parts of the body or doesn’t respond to treatment.
Medscape article – Amazon involved with new cancer vaccine clinical trial (Open access)
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/977131?
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