The Evolving Multiple Myeloma Landscape
New treatments for multiple myeloma (MM) are changing the treatment landscape and that is set to continue over the next few years as several new products come to market.
This year we have seen the FDA approval of subcutaneous bortezomib (Velcade®) and carfilzomib (Kyprolis®). Approval for pomalidomide is anticipated soon.
Earlier this week at the 2012 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium in New York, Sundar Jagannath, M.D., Professor of Medicine at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine presented on “New IMiD and Proteasome Inhibitors.”
Dr Jagannath told a large audience at the Symposium (also known as the Greenspan Meeting) that he hoped “pomalidomide will get accelerated approval and be in your hands by New Year”.
In his presentation, Jagannath discussed some of the new products in development. One that he mentioned in detail was MLN9708/ixazomib (Millennium), a new reversible, oral proteasome inhibitor currently in early clinical trials.
He noted that is not just being developed as a single agent in advanced disease, but is already being tested in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone therapy in earlier settings.
Companies with MM drugs in the pipeline will need to look closely as to how the treatment landscape may change in the next few years if new products such as ixazomib are approved and replace existing products such as bortezomib.
Although Dr Jagannath’s talk was very informative from a new product development perspective, I did wonder whether some of the community medical oncologists in the audience, who only see a few myeloma patients, might have benefitted from a more practice orientated perspective.
I sat next to a community oncologist from Florida, for example, who told me he found the MM treatment regimens difficult to understand for the few patients that he saw.
Dr Jagannath concluded his presentation with the thought that “rapid strides in genomics promises new drugs and personalized medicine in the near future.”
I look forward to hearing more about the latest research in Multiple Myeloma at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH 2012) in Atlanta next month.
