{"id":402377,"date":"2026-04-29T00:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/402377\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T00:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:39:13","slug":"sir-sam-neill-cancer-free-after-cutting-edge-car-t-cell-therapy-turns-health-battle-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/402377\/","title":{"rendered":"Sir Sam Neill cancer-free after cutting-edge CAR T-cell therapy turns health battle around"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThen the chemo stopped working. I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn\u2019t ideal obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neill, who revealed his diagnosis in 2023, credits a cutting-edge treatment with helping him become cancer free.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s science at its best,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy (CAR T) is an immunotherapy that reprogrammes a patient\u2019s own cells to recognise and kill cancer cells.<\/p>\n

It is primarily used for blood cancers such as leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma that have returned or stopped responding to conventional treatments.<\/p>\n

\"SirSir Sam Neill and Rachel House at the Hunt for the Wilderpeople 10th anniversary celebrations in April 2026. Photo \/ Hope Patterson<\/p>\n

Currently, the treatment is only available in New Zealand through clinical trials, such as one being undertaken by the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research.<\/p>\n

The institute says the main barriers to CAR T-cell therapy globally are the burden of managing side-effects and the cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy combining an improved safety profile with cost-effective manufacturing, we aim to address both issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neill is an advocate for the therapy, which has received regulatory approval and is set to be publicly rolled out in some Australian states over the coming months.<\/p>\n

\"SirSir Sam Neill at the 2025 New Zealand Screen Awards in Auckland. Photo \/ Robert Trathen<\/p>\n

Speaking on Kate Thornton\u2019s White Wine Question Time podcast in 2024, Neill spoke about the \u201cstrides\u201d that have been made in science over the past two decades<\/a> that mean people like himself have better survival rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very grateful for not just the wonderful care I\u2019ve had from doctors and nurses and so on, but also the strides that have been made in treating these things in the last few years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this had happened to me 20 years ago, I wouldn\u2019t be around to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThen the chemo stopped working. I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5813,74,665,5837,142192,3944,430,92492,156,134,194,3223,18461,111,139,69,18460,8485,119832,3422,32951],"class_list":["post-402377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-acting","tag-after","tag-around","tag-battle","tag-cancerfree","tag-car","tag-celebrities","tag-cuttingedge","tag-entertainment","tag-health","tag-kiwi","tag-legend","tag-neill","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sam","tag-sir","tag-tcell","tag-therapy","tag-turns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}