New Advances in Multiple Myeloma Research: IU Scientists Push Toward a Functional Cure

THE SEARCH FOR answers to multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that forms in plasma cells, is leading researchers at the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center to places they never expected to go.

Kelvin Lee, MD, the center’s director and a leading multiple myeloma researcher, said conventional wisdom once held that genetic drivers of the disease were out of the reach of drug therapies. Now, that’s changing. IU researchers are developing new therapies — with clinical trials on the horizon — that target genetic drivers of myeloma, attempting to slow or stop the cancer’s progression.

IU researchers are also participating in a global Phase 3 clinical trial of CAR T-cell therapy, a cutting-edge form of immunotherapy, for patients whose disease has relapsed or is resistant to existing treatments.

Promising early results are emerging, too, from a first-in-human trial of a potential new immunotherapy. A team led by IU’s Attaya Suvannasankha, MD, is testing linvoseltamab in patients who had stopped responding to at least three previous lines of therapy. So far, the drug has produced a strong response rate, with most patients remaining in remission for over a year.

Multiple myeloma isn’t yet considered curable, but IU researchers are pushing to extend periods of remission for some patients and a minimal effect on quality of life. In other words, a “functional cure.”

To help advance innovative myeloma research and the development of new therapies at IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, please contact Amber Kleopfer Senseny at akleopfe@iu.edu.