It’s been reported that there is a new drug that is showing potential in treatment for multiple myeloma. Check out the latest reports below.
Multiple myeloma treatment breaking news is out
An innovative drug known as modakafusp alfa has shown early potential in combating multiple myeloma. Just in case you don’t know, this is a form of bone marrow cancer. The results have been shown in a study presented by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Center at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting.
“Patients in the Phase I/II multicenter trial (NCT03215030) receiving 1.5 milligrams of modakafusp every four weeks, 43 percent saw a partial response, or a decrease in their cancer by over 50 percent,” according to the reports.
It’s also important to note the fact that patients enrolled in the study had received at least three prior lines of treatment and had their disease relapsed or stopped responding following the previous therapy.
“We are excited by these findings and continue to be optimistic about the potential this treatment holds for patients with multiple myeloma,” said presenting author Dan Vogl, MD, an expert in blood cancers, medical director of the Clinical Research Unit at Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center.
He is also an associate professor of Hematology-Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania.
He continued and said the following:
“We have been working with this new medication at Penn since we gave it to the first patient ever to receive it five years ago. We now see that a substantial number of patients benefit from modakafusp as a single agent, including patients whose myeloma has become resistant to other treatments, which is really impressive.”
The same news reveals that Modakafusp (developed by Takeda Pharmaceuticals) is a fusion protein that targets interferon (a pro-inflammatory hormone that is also used for treating viral infections and other cancers) to cells that have CD38, a surface marker present on myeloma cells and a variety of immune cells.
The American Cancer Society reveals that there are about 12,640 deaths from multiple myeloma which are expected to occur in the U.S. in 2022.
The type of cancer affects less than 1 percent of the population, and it is currently not curable.
