# Sutter Health: Phase 3 of personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine with pembrolizumab shows lower recurrence risk

- Published: 2026-11-06 07:04 UTC
- Section: Life & Health › Medicine
- Tags: personalized cancer vaccine, melanoma recurrence, mRNA vaccine, pembrolizumab, INTerpath-001, KEYNOTE-942, Phase 3 trial, Sutter Health, adjuvant therapy
- URL: https://realtech.media/news/rt-47fccb251cf2f5be4c9cea8c_sutter_health_phase/

**Per Sutter Health, a Phase 3 trial found that the experimental personalized vaccine plus pembrolizumab lowered the risk of melanoma recurrence or death at two years versus pembrolizumab alone.**

![Sutter Health: Phase 3 of personalized mRNA melanoma vaccine with pembrolizumab shows lower recurrence risk](https://sgzwpqqelzmajkcubgkl.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/rt-media/2026/11/854112b7cbef4bf3.jpg)
*Spencerbdavis, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0*

Sutter Health reported new results from the international Phase 3 INTerpath-001 trial of a personalized mRNA vaccine for melanoma, according to a feature story published on EurekAlert on 5 November 2026. The authors state that the vaccine combined with pembrolizumab reduced the risk of melanoma recurrence or death at two years compared with pembrolizumab alone [1]. The release does not give numerical effect sizes for the Phase 3 trial.

The vaccine is experimental and has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration [1]. According to Sutter, its goal is not to guarantee that cancer will be prevented, but to reduce the risk of melanoma returning or spreading after surgery.

## How the personalized vaccine works

The vaccine uses mRNA technology to help the immune system recognize and attack cancer cells. Each dose is personalized: the unique genetic characteristics of an individual patient's tumor are used to identify tumor-specific targets [1]. The patients in question had their melanoma surgically removed.

"What makes this approach so exciting is that we're using the unique characteristics of a patient's cancer to help their immune system recognize it," said Dr. Kevin Kim, oncologist and chief of precision medicine at Sutter Health.

## From Phase 2 to Phase 3

Sutter investigators, led by Dr. Kim and Dr. Mohammed Kashani-Sabet, medical director of Sutter CPMC's Cancer Center, took part in the earlier Phase 2 study KEYNOTE-942. It compared the personalized vaccine with pembrolizumab against pembrolizumab alone in patients after surgical removal of melanoma [1].

After five years of follow-up in that Phase 2b study, patients who received the vaccine and pembrolizumab had a 49% lower risk of recurrence or death and a 59% lower risk of distant spread or death than those who received pembrolizumab alone [1]. Sutter notes that these figures differ from the Phase 3 findings because the studies involved different patient populations and follow-up periods.

"Seeing this research progress from an early clinical trial to promising results in a much larger study is encouraging," said Dr. Kashani-Sabet.

If the vaccine is approved, it could offer certain patients with high-risk melanoma another way to reduce the risk of their cancer returning after surgery, the release says [1].

## Sources

1. [EurekAlert](https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1150631)

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Source: RealTech, realtech.media — https://realtech.media/news/rt-47fccb251cf2f5be4c9cea8c_sutter_health_phase/