Russia to launch free cancer vaccine in 2025, know the full news

The Russian Health Ministry has announced that it has developed a vaccine against cancer that will be distributed free of charge to Russian patients from early 2025.

Andrey Kaprin, director general of the Russian Health Ministry’s Radiological Medical Research Center, recently announced the development on Russian Radio, according to Russian state-owned news agency TASS.

The vaccine will be used to treat cancer patients, not given to the general public for cancer prevention — and it will be personalized for each patient.

Alexander Gintsburg, director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Moscow, previously told TASS that the vaccine could suppress tumor growth and prevent cancer from spreading.

Newsweek has emailed the Russian Health Ministry, the Russian National Medical Research Radiological Center, and the Gamaleya National Research Center to confirm the announcement and clarify how the vaccine works.

It is currently unclear which cancers the vaccine will treat, how effective it is or even what the vaccine will be named.

Scientifically it is possible that some kind of vaccine has been developed to target cancer. Other countries are currently working to develop something similar. For example, in 2023 the UK government signed a contract with a German biotechnology company to develop personalized cancer treatments, and pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Merck & Co are currently working on a skin cancer vaccine. There are already vaccines on the market that aim to prevent cancer, such as vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV), which help prevent cervical cancer. In the US, neuroscientists at the University of Florida are testing a potential personalized mRNA vaccine for brain cancer.