Many of you have heard about the new myeloma treatment ixazomib (Ninlaro, MLN9708), which is likely to be approved by the FDA sometime in the next year or so. The drug is in the proteasome inhibitor class of therapies, which also includes Velcade and Kyprolis.
One of the things that people think may be particularly attractive about ixazomib is that it can be given orally. To be honest, I'm not sure if, when it is approved, it will be given as a liquid solution, or as a capsule. But you won't have to go somewhere to be injected or infused with the drug, like you (usually) have to do for Velcade or Kyprolis.
There seems to be some confusion, however, about the relationship between ixazomib and Velcade. You'll see it sometimes described as an "oral formulation" of Velcade. If people are interpreting this statement as meaning that ixazomib is basically Velcade, but given as a pill or capsule, that's the wrong interpretation.
Ixazomib is a different drug from Velcade. It's related to Velcade, just like Revlimid is related to its "cousins" thalidomide and Pomalyst. Both ixazomib and Velcade, for example, have boron in them, which is somewhat unusual. But they are definitely different drugs.
I've attached images of the chemical structures of ixazomib and Velcade, just so you don't have to take my word on this. The images are from the website "ChemSpider", which is owned and operated by the Royal Society of Chemistry. So I think you can treat the information as reliable.
The reason I'm bringing up this point is just to make it clear that people shouldn't assume that ixazomib is just Velcade in a different form. It's not. And, because it's not, you can expect ixazomib to have somewhat different side effects from Velcade, just like Revlimid and thalidomide have different side effects. You also can expect ixazomib and Velcade to have somewhat different efficacy.
Ixazomib (MLN9708)
- ixazomib.png (7.32 KiB) Viewed 2158 times
Velcade (bortezomib)
- bortezomib.png (6.5 KiB) Viewed 2158 times
