Can natural killer cells cure leukemia?

As of 2025, 140 companies, including some in big pharma, were developing 160 NK cell strategies, including NK cell products (mostly allogeneic), NK cell engagers, and cytokines or other proteins to better unleash the function of NK cells ( https://www.delveinsight.com/infographics/nk-cell-therapy-pipeline-insight ). While sound basic and clinical investigation has shown that NK cell infusions have robust anti-tumor activity and are undoubtedly safer than T cells without graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) or cytokine release syndrome (CRS), they have limitations that have not been fully overcome to sustain industry investment for commercialization (Fig. 1 ). The clinical promise is supported by many small academic institutional clinical trials and even some from industry [ 1 ], many of which are focused on treating hematologic malignancies. While not all published, we estimate that several thousand cancer patients have been treated with an NK cell-based strategy over the past 2 decades worldwide against a variety of cancers. Fig. 1: Comparisons of the benefits and challenges of NK cell versus T cell therapies. The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI. Full size image A Key advantages of NK cell-based therapies include increased safety profiles, reduced risk of GVHD, and the ability to manufacture allogeneic or universal donors for off-the-shelf use. B Major limitations of current NK cell therapies center on their restricted antigen-specific proliferation, limited in vivo persistence, and incomplete memory-like responses against AML.