An analysis suggests that promising mRNA cancer vaccines could deliver health benefits worth $75 billion annually in the United States. This estimate comes amid a recent cut in federal funding for vaccine development. Researchers warn that reducing investment risks losing these potential gains.
In August 2025, the United States slashed half a billion dollars in funding for vaccine development, a move that threatens the progress of mRNA cancer vaccines. According to a study by Alison Galvani at Yale University and her colleagues, these vaccines could avert nearly 50,000 deaths each year, generating economic value of around $75 billion for a single annual cohort of patients in the US.
"The therapeutic progress demonstrated by each of the clinical trials in our analysis has the potential to avert nearly 50,000 deaths, with an economic value of $75 billion," the team writes. "These estimates represent only a single annual cohort of patients treated for their respective cancer."
The researchers examined 32 ongoing mRNA cancer vaccine trials in the US, selecting the 11 most promising ones. They projected the extra years of life that could be gained over a three-year period if these vaccines succeed and are administered to all eligible patients in one year. To quantify the value, they used a measure from the US Department of Health and Human Services, based on how much people might pay for an additional year of life.
mRNA vaccines work by stimulating the immune system to target proteins on cancerous cells, and their rapid production allows for personalization to individual tumors. Many recent effective cancer treatments rely on enhancing the body's immune response against tumors.
Oliver Watson at Imperial College London, who has modeled benefits of covid-19 vaccines at $5 trillion to $38 trillion globally, notes that the $75 billion figure might overestimate short-term impacts if some candidates fail approval. However, he adds, "These savings are undoubtedly an underestimate," as extending the analysis to multiple cohorts and longer periods would yield far greater totals.
Curtailing federal investment in mRNA technology could forfeit these substantial health and economic benefits, the Yale team cautions. The findings are detailed in a bioRxiv preprint (DOI: 10.1101/2025.09.27.25336817).
