Remember that herpes you all have? Well, it cures cancer.

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But last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the first time approved a a single treatment that can intelligently target cancer cells while leaving healthy ones alone, and simultaneously stimulates the immune system to fight the cancer itself.

The treatment, which is called T-VEC (for tamilogene laherparepvec) but will be sold under the brand name Imlygic, uses a modified virus to hunt cancer cells in what experts said was an important and significant step in the battle against the deadly disease.

It works by introducing a specially modified form of the herpes virus by injection directly into a tumour – specifically skin cancer, the indication for which the drug has been cleared for use.

It was developed by the Massachusetts-based biotech company BioVex, which was acquired in 2011 by the biotech behemoth Amgen for $1bn. The genetic code of the virus – which was originally taken from the cold sore of a BioVex employee – has been modified so that it can kill only cancer cells.

Cancer-hunting viruses have long been thought of as a potential source of a more humane and targeted treatment for cancer. Unlike current oncological treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which kill cancer cells but also damage the rest of the body, viruses can be programmed to attack only the cancer cells, leaving patients to suffer the equivalent of just a day or two’s flu.

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Viruses are “nature’s last untapped bioresource,” Russell said. Imlygic itself has an officially fairly modest effect coming out of its clinical studies – an average lifespan increase of less than five months. But underneath that data, Russell said anecdotally that in his Mayo clinic studies in mice, some programmable viruses saw “large tumours completely disappearing”.

The goal, he said, was to get to the point where the clinical trials would see similarly dramatic outcomes, so that chemotherapy and radiotherapy could finally be consigned to medical history.

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