Tuesday was the last day of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy annual meeting in Orlando.  The myeloma portion of the conference concluded with one session of talks in the morn­ing about treat­ments under devel­op­ment.

The first talk was given by Dr. David Siegel of Hackensack Uni­ver­sity Medical Center in New Jersey.  Dr. Siegel pre­sented re­­sults from a study of single-agent carfilzomib in myeloma patients who had re­lapsed mul­ti­ple times and did not respond to their last treat­ment (abstract).

Among the 257 evaluable par­tic­i­pants, 24 per­cent achieved at least a partial …

This Monday was the third full day of the American Society of Hematology 2010 annual meeting, and it was packed with multiple myeloma-related presentations.  The Beacon published an update earlier today covering presentations made Monday morning.  This article covers material from Monday afternoon and evening.

The first presentation of the afternoon was by Dr. Ruben Niesvizky of the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.  He reported on the results of a Phase 3 trial using Velcade (bor­tez­o­mib)-based initial treat­ment (induction) regi­mens com­bined with weekly Velcade main­te­nance ther­apy (abstract).

Patients in this trial were newly …

Carfilzomib con­tinues to show promising results in multiple myeloma according to four studies presented in a poster session yesterday at the 2010 American Society of Hematology annual meeting in Orlando.

Carfilzomib (Kyprolis), developed by Onyx Pharmaceuticals, is a new drug that is cur­rently being in­ves­ti­gated as a potential treat­ment for multiple myeloma. It belongs to the same class of drugs as Velcade (bor­tez­o­mib). However it works slightly differently by binding to different proteins than Velcade.

Recent research has indicated that car­filz­o­mib is effective for patients with re­lapsed or refractory (resistant) myeloma who …

The American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy meeting swung into full gear yesterday. The day was full of invited talks and a poster session.

The morn­ing kicked off with an education session in which attendees could learn about sev­er­al myeloma-related topics.

The first pre­sen­ta­tion was by Dr. Ola Landgren from the National Cancer In­sti­tute and National In­sti­tutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Landgren spoke about mono­clonal gam­mop­athy of undetermined sig­nif­i­cance (MGUS) and smol­der­ing myeloma, precursor dis­eases of mul­ti­ple myeloma.

A study pub­lished by Dr. Landgren last year showed that all mul­ti­ple myeloma patients have …

Onyx Pharmaceuticals announced today that it is delaying for at least six months its application to market carfilzomib, a new treat­ment for multiple myeloma, in the United States.

Prior to today’s announcement, Onyx had expected to submit car­filz­o­mib’s new drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by the end of this year.

Now the com­pany says its application will be submitted “as early as mid-year 2011.”

In its announcement today, Onyx explained that the delay in car­filz­o­mib’s U.S. marketing timeline is due to an FDA request …

Onyx Pharmaceuticals announced yesterday the results of an ongoing Phase 2b trial of single-agent carfilzomib (Kyprolis) for heavily pre-treated re­lapsed and refractory multiple myeloma patients. The over­all response rate after 12 cycles of single-agent car­filz­o­mib treat­ment in this trial was 24 per­cent, and the median duration of response was 7.4 months.

According to Dr. Michael Kauffman, Chief Medical Officer of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, the com­pany’s newly released results dem­onstrate the potential for car­filz­o­mib to significantly improve the outlook for re­lapsed and refractory multiple myeloma patients.

He cited a recent study conducted by …