Dashboard — Kay Sauer

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Treatment landscape

Cancer, GeneralWritten 2026-08-10

There's no single standard of care for "cancer" as a whole — treatment is driven by tumor type, stage, and biomarkers, typically combining surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, with targeted therapy or checkpoint-inhibitor immunotherapy (pembrolizumab, nivolumab) now standard across many solid tumors. Cancer vaccines are the newest addition to that toolkit and remain mostly experimental, with one long-approved exception — sipuleucel-T, prostate cancer, since 2010.

The most promising direction right now is personalized neoantigen vaccines — built from a patient's own tumor mutations, paired with a checkpoint inhibitor rather than replacing one. mRNA-4157 (melanoma, NSCLC) and autogene cevumeran (pancreatic) are the two furthest along. Select a specific cancer type below for what's actually established there.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Pancreatic CancerWritten 2026-08-10

Pancreatic cancer is treated primarily with surgical resection when caught early — rare, since most cases are diagnosed late — plus chemotherapy, usually FOLFIRINOX or gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel. Five-year survival remains under 12%, largely because so few tumors are resectable and it responds poorly to checkpoint-inhibitor immunotherapy compared to most other cancers.

That resistance to immunotherapy is exactly why vaccines are being tried here: autogene cevumeran (BioNTech), still Phase I/II, produced the most striking readout of any cancer vaccine so far — roughly half of treated patients had T-cell responses linked to no recurrence at 3 years. GVAX pancreatic (an older allogeneic whole-cell approach) and ELI-002 (a KRAS-targeted, lymph-node-directed vaccine) are the other two in active trials, both still early-phase.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

MelanomaWritten 2026-08-10

Advanced melanoma's standard of care is checkpoint-inhibitor immunotherapy — nivolumab or pembrolizumab, often combined with ipilimumab — which achieves durable responses in a meaningful share of patients, a dramatic shift from a decade ago when few options existed. BRAF/MEK-targeted therapy (dabrafenib + trametinib) is standard for the roughly 40–50% of tumors carrying a BRAF mutation.

mRNA-4157 (Moderna/Merck) is the vaccine furthest along here — Phase III as an adjuvant after surgery in high-risk resected melanoma, given alongside pembrolizumab rather than in place of it. Earlier randomized data showed it roughly halved the recurrence-or-death rate versus pembrolizumab alone.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Non-Small Cell Lung CancerWritten 2026-08-10

NSCLC treatment now depends heavily on molecular subtyping — targeted therapy (osimertinib for EGFR-mutant tumors, alectinib for ALK-positive, etc.) for the roughly 30% with an actionable driver mutation, and checkpoint inhibitors, often combined with chemotherapy, as standard for the rest, particularly PD-L1-high tumors.

Vaccines here are earlier-stage than in melanoma: mRNA-4157 has expanded into NSCLC trials, Tedopi (a fixed peptide vaccine) is in Phase III for patients who've progressed after checkpoint-inhibitor treatment, and UCPVax (targeting telomerase) is in earlier trials. None yet has Phase III efficacy data specific to lung cancer.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Head and Neck CancerWritten 2026-08-10

Head and neck squamous cell cancer is treated with surgery and/or chemoradiation depending on stage, with checkpoint inhibitors (pembrolizumab, nivolumab) now standard for recurrent or metastatic disease. HPV-negative tumors tend to respond less well overall to any treatment; HPV-positive tumors — increasingly the majority of new oropharyngeal cases — generally carry a better prognosis regardless of treatment.

Vaccine efforts here specifically target HPV-driven tumors: BNT113 (BioNTech) is a fixed mRNA vaccine for HPV16-positive disease, in Phase II. TG4050, a personalized vaccine, is also being tested here after surgery, alongside ovarian cancer as its other target.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Colorectal CancerWritten 2026-08-10

Treatment is stage-dependent — surgery for localized disease, adjuvant chemotherapy (FOLFOX or similar) for higher-risk cases, and targeted therapy (anti-EGFR antibodies for RAS-wild-type tumors) or immunotherapy for the minority with high microsatellite instability in advanced disease. Most colorectal tumors don't respond well to checkpoint inhibitors alone — a major unmet need.

ELI-002, a KRAS-targeted, lymph-node-directed vaccine, is the main candidate tracked here for colorectal cancer — the same program as in pancreatic cancer, since both are frequently driven by KRAS mutations. Still early-phase and recruiting.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Prostate CancerWritten 2026-08-10

Localized prostate cancer is often managed with surgery, radiation, or active surveillance for low-risk disease; advanced or metastatic disease is treated with androgen deprivation therapy, often combined with newer hormonal agents (abiraterone, enzalutamide) or chemotherapy.

Prostate cancer is unusual among cancers in already having an approved vaccine: sipuleucel-T (Provenge), an autologous cellular vaccine, has been on the market since 2010 for metastatic castration-resistant disease — though its modest survival benefit (about 4 months) and complex manufacturing have limited its use next to newer hormonal therapies. It remains the field's clearest proof a cancer vaccine can work, even if the bar it set was modest.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Neurodegeneration, GeneralWritten 2026-08-10

Neurodegenerative diseases share a family resemblance — progressive loss of specific neuron populations — but very little else. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis have distinct underlying biology (amyloid/tau, dopaminergic neuron loss, autoimmune demyelination, respectively) and essentially no shared treatments. What they do share is a recent shift toward disease-modifying therapy rather than purely symptomatic management, most advanced in Alzheimer's with the anti-amyloid antibodies.

A general "neurodegeneration" treatment doesn't really exist as a category — select a specific condition below for what's actually established and in trials there.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Alzheimer's DiseaseWritten 2026-07-02

Current first-line care is still symptomatic — cholinesterase inhibitors (donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine) and memantine for moderate-to-severe disease. The real shift over the past three years is the arrival of anti-amyloid monoclonal antibodies as the first disease-modifying class: lecanemab and donanemab are both FDA-approved for early, biomarker-confirmed Alzheimer's, each showing roughly 27–35% slower decline on standard cognitive scales over 18 months — at the cost of routine MRI monitoring for ARIA (brain swelling or microbleeds).

Lecanemab is the only one of these tracked here so far — it's already past the pivotal trial stage, mostly extension and prevention studies now. Elsewhere in the class: donanemab is approved on similar data, aducanumab (the first-in-class approval) was later withdrawn from the market by its manufacturer, and remternetug, a faster-acting candidate, is still earlier in development.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Parkinson's DiseaseWritten 2026-08-10

Treatment is still fundamentally symptomatic, built around levodopa — the most effective drug since the 1960s — and dopamine agonists, with deep brain stimulation an option once medication alone stops controlling motor symptoms well. No approved therapy yet slows the underlying loss of dopamine-producing neurons.

Four disease-modifying approaches are tracked here, split across two strategies: prasinezumab, an antibody clearing the misfolded alpha-synuclein protein directly, and ambroxol, a repurposed generic drug boosting a specific enzyme in patients with a GBA1 mutation, are both still Phase II/III with mixed early results. Bemdaneprocel and ANPD001 take a different approach entirely — surgically implanting lab-grown or patient-derived dopamine neurons to physically replace what's lost, rather than modulating existing biology.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

Multiple SclerosisWritten 2026-08-10

MS treatment has moved from symptom management to a genuinely broad menu of disease-modifying therapies that reduce relapse rate and slow disability progression — B-cell-depleting antibodies are now generally considered the most effective class, alongside older options like interferons and fingolimod, chosen based on severity and patient preference. Ocrelizumab, tracked here, is the current backbone of that class and the drug newer candidates are now benchmarked against directly rather than against placebo.

The next wave, also tracked here, is Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors — remibrutinib, fenebrutinib, and tolebrutinib — which can act on brain-resident immune cells that antibody drugs can't reach. Tolebrutinib was the first to show benefit in non-relapsing secondary progressive MS, a harder-to-treat stage most existing drugs don't help. Frexalimab takes a third approach entirely, blocking T-cell/B-cell communication via CD40L rather than depleting cells directly.

Written from general medical literature, not derived from trial data — refreshed occasionally by hand, not on every trial update. Not medical advice.

19 drugs tracked Last refreshed 2026-08-16

Ocrelizumab Neurodegeneration 100 trials · 54 active

Lecanemab Neurodegeneration 37 trials · 31 active

mRNA-4157 Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 12 trials · 11 active

Tedopi Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 7 trials · 6 active

Sipuleucel-T Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 47 trials · 6 active

Remibrutinib Neurodegeneration 6 trials · 6 active

Fenebrutinib Neurodegeneration 5 trials · 5 active

Prasinezumab Neurodegeneration 4 trials · 4 active

Frexalimab Neurodegeneration 4 trials · 4 active

GVAX Pancreatic Cancer Vaccine Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 18 trials · 3 active

Autogene cevumeran Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 4 trials · 2 active

ELI-002 Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 4 trials · 2 active

UCPVax Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 6 trials · 2 active

Ambroxol Neurodegeneration 7 trials · 2 active

BNT113 Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 2 trials · 1 active

TG4050 Oncology — Cancer Vaccine 2 trials · 1 active

Bemdaneprocel Neurodegeneration 1 trials · 1 active

ANPD001 Neurodegeneration 1 trials · 1 active

Tolebrutinib Neurodegeneration 9 trials · 1 active