VIDEO: Better outcomes needed for high-risk multiple myeloma

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I mean, with all the development we've seen in multiple myeloma, there are a few areas of unmet need that we still need to work harder to achieve better, you know, outcomes for patients, and this include treatment of what we call high-risk multiple myeloma. High-risk multiple myeloma is a group of patients who have certain genetic or, you know, clinical features that make them at high risk of early relapse and/or early mortality. So most of the improvement that we've seen in multiple myeloma did actually reflect on improvement for patients with standard risk myeloma.

So high-risk multiple myeloma, for example, include patients who have a deletion 17p or chromosome 1p deletion along with chromosome 1, you know, gain or amplification. So those are subsets of patients that we need to work better in getting them, you know, better outcomes on the long term. We also have subsets of myeloma that we need to focus on more, and that includes plasma cell leukemia, which is a sort of an aggressive form of myeloma with circulating plasma cells, as well as central nervous system, a multiple myeloma or CNS myeloma, that could have happened at time of relapse. We also, you know, need to work harder in getting those patients who are refractory to the most common agents we use in myeloma, better outcomes overall.And this is an area of improvement.

And actually, we already got some developments in that field, including the use of BCMA-based therapies, both by specifics and CAR T-cell therapy. But that remains to be an area of unmet need because patients will remain in need for other agents once the previous agents stop working for them. And I think the other important thing is access to care. We have problems of providing appropriate care to patients who need that care. And for example, there are patients who, for example, live in the community in rural areas who may not have access even to bispecific antibodies, which you can argue can be given without the need of transplant or CAR T center. And we need to reach patients where they are. And I think the access to care is one of the problems that we struggle in with myeloma. Over the years, you know, many people, including us, reported that there are some limitations to what's available for patients according to where they live and so on.