Dr. Munshi on Latest Treatment Developments in Multiple Myeloma

Nikhil C. Munshi, MD, director of Basic and Correlative Science, Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, discusses the latest treatment developments for patients with multiple myeloma.

Despite having a variety of FDA-approved therapies in this setting, Munshi says, there are still improvements that can be made. One example of this is venetoclax (Venclexta), which has demonstrated activity in patients with t(11;14) myeloma, a subgroup that can sometimes account for up to 30% of patients in a clinical trial. Munshi says it is good to have agents with broad labels, but in a disease like multiple myeloma, targeting narrow patient populations is also useful.

He adds that a better understanding of genomics and disease heterogeneity will be crucial in developing more targeted agents—for example, drugs for patients with 17p deletion or for specific mutations. These could be used to augment responses to drugs already on the market.