President Vladimir Putin says Russia is close to creating cancer vaccines

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said that Russian scientists were close to developing cancer vaccinations that might soon be offered to patients.

In televised remarks, Putin stated that “we have come very close to the creation of so-called cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs of a new generation”. “I hope that soon they will be effectively used as methods of individual therapy,” he said at a future technology symposium in Moscow.

Putin did not disclose which cancer types the proposed vaccines would target or how they would be administered.

Many governments and firms are developing cancer vaccines. Last year, the UK government announced an agreement with Germany-based BioNTech to conduct clinical trials for “personalised cancer treatments,” to reach 10,000 patients by 2030.

Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck & Co are developing an experimental cancer vaccine that a mid-stage study showed to cut the chance of recurrence or death from melanoma – the most deadly skin cancer – by half after three years of treatment.

There are currently six licensed vaccines against human papillomaviruses (HPV) that cause many cancers, including cervical cancer, according to the World Health Organization, as well as vaccines against hepatitis B (HBV), which can lead to liver cancer.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Russia developed its own Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 and sold it to a number of countries, although domestically it ran up against widespread public reluctance to get vaccinated.

Putin himself said he had taken Sputnik, in a bid to assure people of its efficacy and safety.