Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said that Russian scientists are quite close to producing a cancer vaccine that could be soon available to patients.
Putin stated in his remarks that were shown on television that "we have come very close to the creation of so-called cancer vaccines and immunomodulatory drugs of a new generation".
During a seminar on future technologies in Moscow, he said, "I hope that soon they will be effectively used as methods of individual therapy”.
He did not specify the kind of cancer the expected vaccines will target, nor how.
A contract was signed between the UK government and German-based BioNTech in order to begin “personalised cancer treatments” with the goal of reaching 10,000 patients by 2030.
An experimental cancer vaccine being developed by Moderna and Merck & Co may reduce the chance of death from melanoma, the most lethal type of skin cancer, by half after three years of therapy, according to a mid-stage trial.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), currently there are six vaccines for hepatitis B, which can cause liver cancer and are also responsible for human papillomaviruses (HPV) that cause many forms of cancer, like cervical cancer.
Russia created its own Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 during the coronavirus pandemic and also exported it to several other nations, but domestically it faced strong public reaction and resistance against the vaccinations.
Putin also acknowledged that he also got the Sputnik vaccine administered in order to assure people regarding its safety and effectiveness.