mazon has partnered with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the US on a cancer vaccine trial.
Fred Hutchinson is the sponsor and responsible party of the trial, while Amazon is listed as the collaborator.
According to a filing on ClinicalTrials.gov, the phase I trial will study the safety of personalised vaccines to treat patients with melanoma (skin cancer) or breast cancer that has spread to other places in the body.
How does the Amazon cancer vaccine trial work?
The patients would receive the vaccine once every four weeks and another cancer treatment every two or four weeks. They would be treated continuously for 25 weeks, followed by another cancer treatment every two or four weeks for up to 12 months.
Following the treatment, the patients would be followed up at 24, 36, and 48 weeks.
The study started on June 9, 2022, and is expected to be completed on November 1, 2023.
They are currently recruiting patients to be a part of the study, and are looking for 20 people over the age of 18.
An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC in a statement: “Amazon is contributing scientific and machine learning expertise to a partnership with Fred Hutch to explore the development of personalised treatment for certain forms of cancer.
“It’s very early, but Fred Hutch recently received permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to proceed with a Phase I clinical trial, and it’s unclear whether it will be successful.
“This will be a long, multi-year process — should it progress, we would be open to working with other organizations in health care and life sciences that might also be interested in similar efforts.”
