Immunotherapy in Myeloma

Though there have been numerous drugs approved for multiple myeloma over the past decade, the disease is still considered incurable.  Immunotherapy is now being realized as an important and perhaps necessary facet of treatment for this disease.  This realization has been accompanied by a variety of immunotherapy approaches in myeloma, each with a unique mechanism of action.  This session will focus on the various classes of immunotherapy, including a rationale for the mechanisms of action as well as a summary of clinical safety and efficacy data.  The session will also discuss how researchers are combining our clinical experience with pre-clinical and correlative data in an effort to improve safety, efficacy and availability of this exciting class of agents.  

Dr. Nina Shah will summarize the pre-clinical and clinical data on CAR-R cell therapy in multiple myeloma.  She will review the rationale for selection of target antigens (in particular, BCMA) and summarize the early phase I and phase II clinical data, which has shown unprecedented results.  Dr. Shah will also discuss the limitations of this therapy and the many innovative approaches to extending the efficacy of this treatment.  Finally, she will discuss the real-world challenges of bringing CAR-T cell therapy to all myeloma patients as well as how we may sequence various immunotherapy approaches to maximize the duration of response. 

Dr. Adam Cohen will discuss non-cellular, next generation immunotherapy for multiple myeloma.  In particular, he will describe checkpoint inhibitors, antibody-drug conjugates, and bispecific antibodies/BiTEs (bispecific therapeutic engagers).   He will also review the early but impressive clinical data seen with these agents as well as compare their safety to that of cellular therapies.  Dr. Cohen will also touch on the benefits of these therapies over that of cellular therapies and suggest how we may sequence between the numerous immunotherapy options.  

Dr. Ivan Borrello will discuss non-CAR-T cellular therapy approaches, which include vaccine and other T cell strategies.  He will review the rationale for harnessing the power of these components of the immune system and describe the innovative research and procedures developed over the last decade to generate cellular therapies at various academic institutions.  Dr. Borrello will also review the early clinical data generated with these cellular immunotherapies and how they are informing future studies.  Finally, he will discuss the potential for combination of these therapies with existing anti-myeloma therapies or with concurrently developing other immunotherapies.