Ashlee VanceNYT Best Seller | Reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek

The New Cancer Drug Saving Lives #science #biology #biotech #medicine #tech

4 Apr 2026 · 2 min

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1:40

In this interview segment, representatives from Strand Therapeutics describe a striking result from their ongoing Australian clinical trial for a skin‑cancer therapy. The trial, now treating about 35 patients with stage 4 metastatic melanoma that is resistant to existing treatments, uses an intratumoral injection of their experimental drug every three weeks. One patient entered the study in the summer with extensive disease spread to bone, muscle, and lung. By the following Christmas, after a single tumor injection and subsequent dosing, the patient had no detectable tumors. The speakers emphasize the unexpected nature of the outcome, the rapid timeline, and the hope that the patient will continue to enjoy long‑term remission.

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When this patient entered our trial last summer, it was probably unlikely they were going to make it to Christmas. And instead, at Christmas last year, they had no detectable tumors.
Some of Strand's most impressive work to date has come through a clinical trial in Australia around skin cancer.
Our first program that's in the clinic right now has treated about 35 patients so far, most of whom have, you know, stage 4 melanoma. Resistant to existing therapies. This is from the first cohort of patients we treated starting summer of last year. So this patient had stage 4 aggressive metastasis, started with melanoma on their skin that then had metastasized into their bones, into their muscles, and into their lungs. All of these smaller black masses are the tumors in this patient. You can see just the absolute extent of disease that this patient was dealing with. And so we went in with our drug, injected into, you know, a single one of these tumors, and then every Every 3 weeks the patient comes in. So what happened between here and what I'm about to show you, when the patient had come back in, in between one of their injections, all of their tumors disappeared.
It's gotta be insane when you see this for the first time.
Yeah. You know, when this patient entered our trial last summer, it was probably unlikely they were gonna make it to Christmas. And instead, at Christmas last year, they had no detectable tumors. And— Ideally, they're gonna see Christmas this year and many more years to come. Yeah, very cool.
In a moment, we shall head into Strand's labs, but before we do—