After several setbacks in the treatment of his stage-3 lymphoma, actor Sam Neill has revealed he is cancer free, and he says a groundbreaking therapy is the reason.

Neill, who has previously spoke candidly about his grim survival prospects, attributed his recovery to CAR T-cell therapy, which genetically modifies blood cells.

“I’ve been living with a particular type of lymphoma for about five years and I was on chemotherapy, and the pretty miserable business, but it was keeping me alive,” Neill told the Seven Network.

The New Zealand-based Jurassic Park star said that, at one point, after the chemotherapy stopped working, “I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn’t ideal obviously”.

Neill is advocating for wider access to CAR T-cell therapy across Australia, where it is available only in some states to treat a limited number of cancers.

“I’ve just had a scan just now and there is no cancer in my body, that’s an extraordinary thing,” he said. “I’m very, very excited that this can happen.”

Neil announced he was “not afraid to die” when he first revealed his diagnosis of angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma in his 2023 book Did I Ever Tell You This?.

“I’m not afraid to die, but it would annoy me,” he said at the time. “Because I’d really like another decade or two, you know? We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses. I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big. But as for the dying? I couldn’t care less.”

Neill first gained recognition in 1979’s My Brilliant Career. Photo: NSW Film and TV

Neill first made his name with Australian Audiences in the critically acclaimed My Brilliant Career alongside Judy Davis.

Since then he has starred in dozens of movies including Hunt for Red October, The Dish and Hunt for the Wilderpeople, as well as roles in television series Peaky Blinders, The Twelve and The Tudors.

Despite his diagnosis and subsequent treatment, Neill has continued to build on his enviable body of work in recent years and will be seen in upcoming movies Godzilla x Kong: Supernova and The Last Resort.

CAR T-cell therapy

According to Victoria’s Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, CAR (Chimeric Antigen Receptor) T-cell therapy is a new form of immunotherapy that uses altered T cells to target cancer cells.

“The immune system consists of many cells and organs. They almost always protect the body from infection and cancer,” it says on its website.

“An important part of the immune system is T cells. T cells can hunt down and destroy abnormal cells, including some cancer cells,” it explains.

“Sometimes cancer cells find ways to evade the immune system. When this happens, we need to retrain the immune system to recognise and attack cancer cells. CAR T-cell therapy is one way that we can train and strengthen the immune system to attack some forms of cancer.”

Source: National Cancer Institute Canada

The CAR T-cell therapy process follows several key steps.

First, a process is performed to filter the patient’s blood and collect only T lymphocytes.

Once isolated, the T lymphocytes are exposed to a modified virus carrying the CAR gene, programming them to express the CAR receptor and target cancer cells.

The modified cells are cultured until sufficient quantities are produced. After expansion in culture, the T lymphocytes are re-infused into the patient’s body, creating a personalised therapy.

One of the barriers to widespread use of CAR T-cell therapy is its cost, which can be as much as several hundred thousand dollars, due to the complexity of the treatment.