This is the latest episode of the free DDW narrated podcast, “Drug discovery success stories", which covers two articles written for Volume 23, Issue 3 – Summer 2022 of DDW. They are called “Global pharma start-up success stories”, and “Excitement at rectal cancer immunotherapy breakthrough”. In the first article, Lu Rahman selects some interesting global start-ups pushing the boundaries in drug discovery, from AI to £D deep-learning research to biologics. In the second article, we explore a groundbreaking ‘immuno-ablative’ neo- adjuvant immunotherapy clinical trial that Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has reported has having had a 100% complete response rate in MMRd locally advanced rectal cancer.