The mRNA technology that helped end the COVID-19 pandemic may now hold the key to defeating cancer, and it exists because of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed.
Researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Florida recently reported that lung and skin cancer patients who received COVID-19 mRNA vaccines alongside standard immunotherapy lived nearly twice as long as those who received immunotherapy alone. The vaccines appeared to “retrain” patients’ immune systems to recognize and attack tumors, a finding some scientists are calling the first step toward a universal cancer vaccine.
If a cancer vaccine ultimately succeeds, we’ll have Trump to thank. During his term, scientists, manufacturers and regulators worked to deliver mRNA vaccines in seven months, saving millions of lives and $1 trillion in healthcare costs.
Operation Warp Speed proved that when the government clears red tape and partners with industry, breakthroughs arrive at a record pace.
For decades, researchers had explored messenger RNA as a possible tool against cancer, but few investors were willing to bet on it. After Operation Warp Speed, that changed, and millions in private capital poured into mRNA research.
Today, more than 120 mRNA clinical trials are underway for multiple types of cancer. Early studies show mRNA vaccines can reduce relapse rates in melanoma patients and shrink pancreatic tumors.
What started as a race to stop COVID-19 has become a revolution in medicine. Yet, mRNA’s potential is under threat, not from Trump but from previous policies and recent actions by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
President Biden promised to “end cancer as we know it” through his Cancer Moonshot, an initiative to speed up progress in cancer prevention, detection and treatment. In practice, the administration pursued policies that undermined this goal. The Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature domestic achievement, imposed government price controls on drugs for the first time, discouraging the long-term investment and risk-taking required to develop new cures.
That’s especially damaging in cancer research, where drug development timelines can stretch well over a decade and depend on multiple rounds of follow-on research. Industry data already shows a sharp decline in post-approval clinical trials to explore new uses for cancer medicines since the IRA took effect, as companies shelve projects unlikely to recover their costs under government-imposed pricing.
A “pill penalty” buried in the law makes matters worse by discouraging the development of oral cancer treatments that let patients manage their therapy from home instead of at the hospital. Since the IRA passed, numerous drugmakers have discontinued oncology research programs and abandoned oral oncology drugs in development. Economists at the University of Chicago warn that the IRA could lead to up to 188 fewer “small molecule” — many available in pill form — drugs and indications over the next two decades.
Now, inexplicably, HHS is making decisions that would compound the harm. Breaking with Trump’s cutting-edge innovation, the HHS secretary, Kennedy, recently cut nearly $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccine research, just as the technology’s extraordinary potential for cancer treatment is coming into view. HHS should be scaling up, not scaling down, support for advanced mRNA research.
The lesson of Operation Warp Speed is clear: scientific breakthroughs occur when the government trusts scientists and entrepreneurs, rather than dictating what their discoveries are worth. That’s how America built the world’s most dynamic biotech industry. And it’s why the second Trump administration would be wise to build on the successes of the first by funding mRNA research and streamlining the drug approval process so that American companies can develop the next generation of treatments and cures as quickly as possible.
If America stays that course, Trump may ultimately get credit for defeating cancer.