Sam Neill has announced he is now cancer-free after undergoing a new treatment when chemotherapy stopped working on his stage-three blood cancer. The Jurassic Park actor made the announcement on Australian broadcaster 7News while advocating for CAR T-cell therapy – a form of cancer immunotherapy which he underwent as part of a clinical trial – to be rolled out for blood cancer patients across Australia.
Neill first revealed that he was being treated for stage-three angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma in his 2023 memoir, Did I Ever Tell You This? When the book was published, the actor was taking a new chemotherapy drug monthly to keep the cancer at bay. But when chemotherapy stopped working, he said: 'I was at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out – which wasn’t ideal obviously.'
Neill then took part in a CAR T-cell therapy clinical trial focused on his type of lymphoma in Australia. 'I’ve just had a scan just now and there is no cancer in my body, that’s an extraordinary thing,' Neill said. 'I’m very, very excited that this can happen.'
CAR T-cell therapy is currently only available under Australia’s public health system for certain cancers at certain hospitals; privately, the treatment currently costs upwards of A$600,000 (£320,000, US$430,000) per patient in Australia. The 78-year-old actor was speaking as part of a campaign to ask Australia’s state and federal governments to expand the availability of CAR T-cell therapy for more cancer patients, with the help of not-for-profit blood cancer foundation Snowdome.
Neill thanked the scientists who helped him, writing on social media: 'I am still processing this miraculous information. But of course it is not a miracle, it is science at its best.' He added: 'Treatments like this – CAR-T therapies and others coming through in a rapidly changing medical world – I hope to be available to everyone who needs them.'
