PwC’s Glenn Hunzinger on Personalised mRNA Cancer Vaccines

After three decades at PwC, Glenn Hunzinger has long had a front-row seat to the transformations underway in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors.

Glenn began his career as a deals partner, spending 25 years working across M&A, from diligence and integration to divestments, with experience spanning medtech, pharma and oncology. For the past five years, he has led PwC’s US health practice.

His perspective stretches across the pharmaceutical value chain, from R&D and manufacturing to supply chain, sales and marketing, giving him a broad view of both established healthcare players and companies operating at the frontier of innovation.

That perspective now informs his view of the emerging mRNA cancer vaccine landscape, which experienced a pivotal moment when Merck & Co (or MSD) and Moderna reported in August 2026 that their personalised vaccine candidate stopped skin cancer from returning in some patients during the pair’s INTerpath-001 Phase 3 trial.

“I’d say there’s a level of excitement here that I think makes this a little bit unique,” Glenn says.

For him, however, the significance of personalised cancer vaccines extends beyond the science.

Turning clinical breakthroughs into treatments that can reach patients at scale will require the construction of novel, vaccine-specific infrastructure and pharmaceutical companies, healthcare providers, payers and logistics networks to fundamentally rethink how they work together.

A unique challenge

The fundamental difference is in the nature of the medicine itself.

“The medicine is made for one patient, so every step between the patient, the manufacturing process and everything else becomes part of the treatment,” Glenn says.

While CAR-T and the rapid expansion of COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing demonstrated that the pharmaceutical industry can scale capacity quickly, personalised cancer vaccines present a different proposition.

“This is a different level,” he says. “The question will be: we’ve produced things for the masses, but can we produce personalised things for the masses?”

That shift from standardised production to highly individualised treatment has implications far beyond manufacturing. Glenn describes personalised cancer vaccines as “a fundamentally different business model and organisation”, requiring pharma and the wider healthcare ecosystem to rethink how treatments are produced and delivered.

“The good thing is that pharma and the wider health ecosystem has generally risen to the occasion,” he says. “But this one is different and unique because it is so personalised.”

The growing consumerisation of healthcare adds another dimension. As patients become accustomed to personalised, technology-enabled experiences elsewhere in their lives, expectations around convenience, speed and access are also changing within healthcare.

The industry is faced with a double-edged challenge: building a system capable of delivering highly individualised therapies while creating a patient experience that meets those changing expectations.

Vaccine-specific infrastructure

As personalised cancer vaccines scale, the physical infrastructure supporting them will need to evolve.

Initially, Glenn expects much of the capacity to be built around existing infrastructure, with elements retrofitted or adapted to accommodate personalised treatments. But the logistics model itself will need to change.

“Healthcare logistics currently operate at mass scale with products. They’re going to have to retrofit that to handle the personalised aspect of these therapies,” he says.

For Glenn, the shift is best captured by a simple comparison: “Think more Amazon than bulk Walmart.”

That means creating a connected journey from the patient and the initial collection of genetic material through to manufacturing and the return of the finished treatment.

“There are definitely going to be new things that are needed: hospitals being able to extract the DNA, logistics to get it to the major laboratories, and then the journey back to get the treatment into the patient.”

While elements of that infrastructure already exist, the scale and nuances of personalised treatment will eventually demand new investment.

“At some point, you’re going to need net-new infrastructure,” Glenn says.

That investment is likely to follow proof of demand rather than precede it. “We generally don’t overinvest in these things. It starts, and then once there’s a proof point and you see the scale plan, you invest.”

From oncology to personalised medicine

That proof point could also have implications beyond cancer.

“I think oncology will be a very wide investment,” Glenn explains, but he believes the trajectory of personalised cancer vaccines could ultimately serve as a test of whether the underlying technology represents a broader platform for personalised medicine.

“That is the broader hope for certain diseases and disease states, but I think we’ll know soon. That will be the telltale sign.”

The positive trial results from Moderna and Merck & Co. provide the kind of evidence that can build confidence among investors and the wider industry.

“The proof point is there,” he says. “Usually in the world of science, when people see a proof point and are able to see it, touch it and feel it, that creates conviction.”

That conviction can, in turn, drive investment. “That’s really where capital and resources end up pouring in,” Glenn adds. “There’s a lot of history around that.”

The reimbursement challenge

For Glenn, however, the biggest barrier to wider adoption may ultimately sit outside the laboratory or manufacturing facility: funding and reimbursement.

“We’ve got 21st-century science here and 20th-century payment models,” he says. “There has to be innovation around payment models.”

The challenge is particularly acute for therapies that could potentially deliver a long-term benefit from a single intervention, rather than treatments patients take continuously. One possible route is to link payment more closely to outcomes, with manufacturers taking on some of the financial risk if a treatment does not deliver the expected result.

But even that creates difficult questions around a patient’s position in their cancer journey and how long-term value should be measured.

“The question will be affordability and how we structure these models,” Glenn explains. “We’re going to have to develop a model that can ultimately align with those outcomes.”

For Glenn, as the science becomes increasingly established, investment will follow and the industry can ultimately work through the operational complexity.

The harder question is how healthcare systems absorb the upfront cost of treatments that could deliver benefits over many years.

“You end up with this short-term spike for longer-term longevity,” he says. “And that’s ultimately the challenge.”

As personalised medicine moves closer to the mainstream, finding a sustainable balance between scientific innovation, infrastructure, investment and reimbursement could prove just as important as the breakthroughs that made these therapies possible.

PwC - key partners

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

CEO: Matt Garman | HQ: Seattle, Washington

PwC and AWS work together across healthcare and life sciences, combining PwC’s industry expertise with AWS cloud technology. Their work spans clinical trials, pharmaceutical R&D, medical affairs and healthcare operations, using cloud, AI and analytics to improve efficiency and accelerate innovation. PwC also describes AWS as a health services competency partner supporting digital transformation across healthcare organisations.

Microsoft

CEO: Satya Nadella | HQ: Redmond, Washington

PwC’s alliance with Microsoft includes dedicated healthcare applications, with the two companies working on cloud-based solutions designed to improve patient and member experiences, collaboration and operational efficiency. In life sciences, the partnership combines Microsoft’s cloud and AI capabilities with PwC’s industry expertise to support digital transformation, data management and innovation across the healthcare value chain.

Palantir

CEO: Alexander Karp | HQ: Denver, Colorado

PwC works with Palantir on data-driven healthcare transformation, including supporting the rollout of NHS England’s Federated Data Platform. The partnership combines Palantir’s data technology with PwC’s healthcare and transformation expertise, with applications focused on connecting operational data, improving efficiency and supporting better patient outcomes across health systems.