Discussing BCMA-Directed Therapies for Multiple Myeloma

Adam Cohen, MD, director, Myeloma Immunotherapy, and associate professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, discusses his presentation on updates in BCMA-directed therapies for multiple myeloma, which he gave during the 3rd Summit of the Americas on Immunotherapies for Hematologic Malignancies.

According to Cohen, the recently approved agents like belantamab mafodotin (BLENREP), as well as ciltacabtaene autoleucel (cilta-cel; Carvykti), and idecabtagene vicleucel (ide-cel; Abecma) have been transformative for the multiple myeloma landscape.

During the presentation, Cohen discussed the clinical research supporting the FDA-approved BCMA-directed therapies and the novel agents and targets being explored in ongoing studies.

Transcription:

0:08 | The bulk of my talk I think is really just presenting the clinical data that supports the use of both belantamab mafodotin as well as ide-cel, and cilta-cel, which are the FDA approved products. I also go through some of the really exciting data coming out with the bispecific antibodies and other immune therapy that's showing a lot of promise in myeloma as well as in other cancers.

0:28 | And so, I review some of the most mature data from the BCMA-targeted bispecifics as well as from 2 bispecifics hitting other targets, 1 called GPRC5D and 1 [called] FCRH5. So, there's really a lot of exciting new immunotherapies for myeloma, and these are showing really high response rates, even in patients who have already had a prior CAR T cells or prior BCMA-directed therapy in some cases.

0:53 | Then, I finish up with a little bit of discussion of correlative analysis trying to understand mechanisms of resistance, which patients might be likely to respond, and which patients might not. And I think that's going to hopefully help frame the next generation of trials if we really understand why some patients are not going to respond to these current products that are either better products that we can use, or can we combine these currently available therapies with some of our other therapies in myeloma to really start getting deeper and more durable remissions for more patients and maybe even eventually get to a cure? That's really what we're all hoping [for].