A new era of cancer treatment seems to have begun in earnest. Merck and Moderna’s personalized therapeutic vaccine for high risk melanoma is working as intended and keeping people cancer-free years later, trial data released this week has shown.

On Thursday, the pharmaceutical companies released the full promising Phase III results of their mRNA-based vaccine, named intismeran autogene. People given intismeran in combination with a standard immunotherapy drug were substantially less likely to have their cancer return two years later and are possibly living longer than those only given the drug, researchers found. Though longer-term data is still being collected, intismeran appears set to become the first next-generation cancer vaccine to garner regulatory approval in the near future.

These results will be published in the New England Journal of Medicine, meaning they will undergo the typical peer-review process, and will be presented over the weekend at a cancer conference.…