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Last year appeared the new of a cancer "vaccine" (not a vaccine in the traditional sense) tested in animals for 4 types of cancer and which worked in 97% of the cases to eliminate already existent tumours.

Cancer Vaccine Trial

Now appeared the new of "cancer drugs which can attack all tumours" to be fast-tracked by NHS.

Game changing cancer drugs can attack tumours

I would like to know if both procedures are based in similar ideas (meaning the second one could have a similar effectiveness to the first one) or if they are completely unrelated.

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The first source (Science Direct) says that the "vaccine" treatment stimulates T cells to attack cancer. In general, this treatment is intended for all tumors and has been very successful in studies in mice. Cancer.net and Cancerresearchuk describe cancer treatment vaccines in a bit more detail.

The second source (Telegraph.co.uk) mentions “tumor agnostic” or "tissue agnostic" drugs, which target tumors according to their genetic make-up, rather than the tissue from which they arise. This treatment is intended only for specific tumors with known genetic mutations. Examples of tissue-agnostic drugs are pembrolizumab and larotrectinib, which are approved by FDA for treatment of certain metastatic solid tumors.

So, these are two different ideas and most of these drugs are currently in a research phase.

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  • $\begingroup$ in complement to Jan's answer, the 2 therapies discussed here are unrelated. The first one stimulates T cells locally at/around the tumor site with TLR ligands and is a class of immunotherapy, while the second one aims at shrinking the tumor cells by targeting some genetic alterations. Note that the second one may induce immunogenicity $\endgroup$
    – Sébastien Wieckowski
    Jun 14, 2020 at 7:40

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