Inside STAT: The entrepreneur behind the cancer immunotherapy revolution

NILS LONBERG HELPED USHER IN A TRANSFORMATION IN THE WAY CANCER IS TREATED.
(LAURA MORTON FOR STAT)

It all started with a decision to buy an entire bottle of whiskey back in 1998. Nils Lonberg, then a scientist at pharma company Medarex, had stayed up all night talking and drinking with Jim Allison. Allison shared with Lonberg an early vision for cancer immunotherapy, the revolutionary idea of harnessing the body’s own immune system to fight tumors that would one day earn Allison a Nobel Prize. When he accepted that prize last year, Lonberg was not on the podium, nor was his colleague Alan Korman, who was also instrumental in making immunotherapy a commercial success. But without them, a class of medicines that have changed the way doctors think about and treat tumors might not exist. STAT’s Matthew Herper has more on Lonberg here.