Eight patients, no serious side effects: a pinpoint radiation therapy clears its first human test

For people whose cancer has spread and who have run out of standard treatments, even a safe first step matters. Akiram Therapeutics, a small company in Uppsala, Sweden, is testing a treatment that works like a guided delivery: a molecule finds a marker called CD44v6 on tumour cells and carries a tiny radioactive payload straight to them, aiming to spare healthy tissue. In the first test in people, eight patients received the therapy, called AKIR001. Scans showed it stayed in the tumours while clearing from the blood and healthy tissue, no dose-limiting side effects appeared, and the side effects seen were mild to moderate. Four patients were able to receive the treatment again. The results were picked as a top-rated presentation at Europe's EANM 2026 nuclear-medicine congress in Vienna on 17-21 October, and the team is now raising the dose step by step to learn how much patients can safely receive.