In less than three weeks, American medicine produced two milestones worth noticing.

On Aug. 5, the Food and Drug Administration approved MFLUSIVA, Moderna’s influenza vaccine for adults 50 and older — the first flu vaccine in the United States built with messenger RNA, or mRNA.

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Two weeks later, Moderna and Merck announced positive Phase 3 results for an individualized mRNA treatment intended to keep high-risk melanoma from returning after surgery. It was the first positive Phase 3 result for an mRNA-based cancer therapy.

That second achievement deserves some explanation.

Messenger RNA is essentially a temporary set of biological instructions. For this treatment, scientists analyze mutations in an individual patient’s tumor and create an mRNA therapy designed to teach that patient’s immune system what to attack. It is not a preventive vaccine like a flu shot. It is a therapeutic cancer vaccine personalized to one patient’s tumor.

The therapy was added to Keytruda, Merck’s widely used immunotherapy, which helps the immune system attack cancer by releasing one of the brakes tumors can place on it. Keytruda is already a standard treatment for high-risk melanoma. The remarkable finding is that adding the personalized mRNA therapy produced better results than Keytruda alone.

That is extraordinary science. But it is not finished science.

Moderna and Merck have........

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