Saturday was the official first day of the 2014 American Society of Hema­tology (ASH) annual meeting. The day featured a wide range of in­ter­est­ing pre­sen­ta­tions about mul­ti­ple myeloma.

Oral pre­sen­ta­tions about new treat­ments under devel­op­ment were given mid-day and were summarized in a Beacon ASH Daily Update published yes­ter­day morn­ing.

During Saturday evening, a poster session took place where im­por­tant new re­search findings were summarized in posters dis­played throughout two separate large conference halls.

The stud­ies covered a variety of myeloma-related topics, ranging from new treat­ments being devel­oped for myeloma, com­bi­na­tion ther­a­pies …

This year’s meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) began yesterday morning in San Francisco.

Myeloma-related presentations were made during several sessions throughout the day.

The day started out with a session designed to better educate physicians about multiple myeloma and how to treat the disease.

Two sessions of oral presentations devoted solely to multiple myeloma ran simultaneously in the middle of the day. One of the sessions focused on the biology of the disease. The other one included presentations on new myeloma ther­a­pies for both newly diagnosed and re­lapsed and …

Amgen has given a first glimpse of key results from its FOCUS Phase 3 clinical trial testing Kyprolis in re­lapsed and refractory multiple myeloma patients.

The com­pany reported this past Wednesday that Kyprolis did not provide an over­all survival advantage in the trial, which is being con­ducted out­side the United States.

In addi­tion, the com­pany noted that patients treated with Kyprolis during the trial experienced more kidney-related side effects than patients who were not treated with the drug.

Up until recently, the primary significance of the FOCUS trial would have been its …

Thousand Oaks, California and South San Francisco, California (Press Release) - Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) and its sub­sid­i­ary, Onyx Pharma­ceu­ticals, Inc., today announced that the Phase 3 clin­i­cal trial FOCUS (CarFilzOmib for AdvanCed Refractory MUltiple Myeloma European Study) did not meet its pri­mary end­point of im­prov­ing over­all survival (OS) (HR=0.975, 95 per­cent CI, 0.760, 1.249). The 315-patient, open-label study eval­u­ated single-agent Kyprolis® (car­filz­o­mib) for Injection compared to an active control regi­men of low-dose dexa­meth­a­sone, or equivalent corticosteroids, plus optional cyclo­phos­pha­mide in patients with re­lapsed and ad­vanced refractory multiple myeloma. Nearly all patients in …

Amgen this morning announced initial results of its Phase 3 “ASPIRE” trial com­par­ing Kyprolis-Revlimid-dex­a­meth­a­sone to Revlimid-dex­a­meth­a­sone in pa­tients with re­lapsed multiple myeloma.

Patients in the trial who received the Kyprolis-Revlimid-dex­a­meth­a­sone com­bi­na­tion (KRd) had significantly longer pro­gres­sion-free survival (26.3 months) than patients who received only Revlimid and dex­a­meth­a­sone (Rd) (17.6 months).

There was also a trend in the results toward improved over­all survival among the patients who received KRd versus those who did not. How­ever, the difference is not yet statistically significant.

The results of the trial are important for two reasons.

First, …

Kyprolis Helped Patients Live 8.7 Months Longer Without Their Disease Worsening
Results to Form Basis of Regulatory Filings Beginning in 1H 2015

Thousand Oaks, California and South San Francisco, California (Press Release) Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) and its sub­sid­i­ary, Onyx Pharma­ceu­ticals, Inc., today announced that a planned interim analysis demon­strated that the Phase 3 clin­i­cal trial ASPIRE (CArfilzomib, Lena­lido­mide, and DexamethaSone versus Lena­lido­mide and Dexamethasone for the treat­ment of PatIents with Relapsed Multiple MyEloma) met its pri­mary end­point of pro­gres­sion-free survival (PFS). Patients treated with Kyprolis® (car­filz­o­mib) for Injection in com­bi­na­tion with Revlimid® (lena­lido­mide) and low-dose dexa­meth­a­sone (KRd) lived sig­nif­i­cantly longer without their disease worsening (median 26.3 months) compared …

This year’s American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago ended last Tuesday.

The day before the meeting ended was the busiest day at the meeting with re­gard to myeloma research.  It featured a session of oral pre­sen­ta­tions in the morn­ing and a poster session in the afternoon. In addi­tion, an education ses­sion was held in the afternoon that included one myeloma-related talk, given by Dr. Leif Bergsagel of the Mayo Clinic, about progress in the treat­ment of mul­ti­ple myeloma (article in the ASCO 2014 Edu­ca­tional Book).

This update …