Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Novel Therapies Put Multiple Myeloma 'On the Ropes'

SAN FRANCISCO – A sweep of new agents are poised to deliver what could be a knock-out blow to multiple myeloma, according to the director of the myeloma program at the University of California, San Francisco.

Some are second- or third-generation agents in a mainstay class that appear to have less toxicity than and/or overcome resistance to their predecessors, Dr. Jeffrey L. Wolf said at the annual Oncology Congress here. Others come from classes not previously used in this disease. 

"There is a rush to develop new drugs in myeloma," Dr. Wolf told attendees. "We [understand] some mechanisms that the disease seems to favor, so we can interfere with those."

The prospects, in turn, are excellent: "We have made such tremendous headway in myeloma, except for those exceptional cases with 17p deletions and some other adverse prognostic features," he said. "As a disease, it seems to be on the ropes." 

More After the Jump

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