On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia is close to creating anti-cancer vaccines that could be made available to the public in the near future.
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"The new discoveries in medicine, methods of prevention, and treatment should be accessible to the people," he said during a meeting of the Future Technologies Forum in Moscow.
Putin stated that research teams should receive fair royalties for the commercialization of scientific solutions and the transfer of intellectual property rights. The volumes of these royalties should be calculated using a uniform methodology.
The Russian president, however, did not provide details on the types of cancer targeted by the vaccines in develoment or how they would work.
Currently, several countries are working on developing cancer vaccines. In 2023, for example, the UK signed an agreement with the German company BioNTech to initiate clinical trials of personalized cancer treatments, which could be available for around 10,000 patients by 2030.
Pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck are also working on developing an experimental cancer vaccine. According to a mid-stage study, their vaccine has shown to halve the likelihood of recurrence or death from melanoma, the deadliest type of skin cancer.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has authorized six vaccines against the human papillomavirus (HPV), which is responsible for various types of cancer, including cervical cancer. Additionally, there are vaccines against hepatitis B (HBV), which can be a risk factor for liver cancer.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian scientific-industrial complex also demonstrated its efficiency and expertise through the development of the Sputnik V vaccine, which was exported to several countries.