Good morning. This is Natalia Neparitse. I work at the Yale Cancer Center at Yale University and Department of Internal Medicine, section of hematology. And I'm pleased to report that we have an exciting study and its genomic correlatives being presented at ASH. This is a study that we performed at Yale University on myeloma patients who were newly diagnosed. There were approximately 28 patients who were treated uniformly with a treatment called KRD, carfilzomib lenalidomide dexamethasone. And these patients were evaluated before and after treatment with a whole body MRI to evaluate whether there's large aggressive bony lesions that are characteristic of myeloma. We believe that some of these highly aggressive bone lesions may actually lead to persistence of the disease and disease progression. And so these patients treated in the study were evaluated after treatment, again with MRI, and some of these lesion biopsies were performed for sequencing and genomic studies. And we observed that these lesions, and I should mention that myeloma is extremely diverse in terms of its distribution within the bones, and it tends to form these deposits, which may likely lead to progression of disease over the years and lead to the relapse. And that's why, unfortunately, multiple myeloma tends to relapse. So our study elucidated some of the genomic profiles that could implicate high risk for disease progression and recurrence. So this is an important study because a couple of these mutations that we noted in the lesions were commonly described as the MYC, M-Y-C, as well as KRS. And nowadays, scientists are developing great new drugs to target this mutation. So these mutations may in the future be drugable. So the findings of this study are relevant in terms of future therapeutic implications. I also wanted to highlight a couple of really important progresses in terms of bispecific T cell engagers. There's a whole array of bispecific antibodies that are being developed for multiple myeloma. The two major targets that appear extremely promising for this disease specifically are the number one B cell maturation antigen, BCMA, and the second, which appears to be Next best target in multiple myeloma is GPRC5D. And audience at ASH this year will present some of the updates of key trials from like Monumental with TelquetaMub, another RG bispecific antibody, as well as AlnuktaMub and Elranetamab. So these are some of the exciting brand new drugs going through phase one and phase two investigations and they have shown extremely high response rates and extremely promising for our patients with relapsed myeloma and will likely move to the frontline treatment of myeloma. And so we're exciting to have the progress in the field to save lives and prolong survival for our patients with multiple myeloma. Thank you.
HealthTree • December 11, 2022