Four clinical trials presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) 2011 annual meeting in San Diego last month suggest that Zolinza, in combination with a number of approved myeloma drugs, may be a treatment option for relapsed and treatment-resistant multiple myeloma patients.

However, results of a key Phase 3 trial involving the drug were disappointing, and they call into question whether the drug will receive formal FDA approval as a treatment for myeloma.

Zolinza (vorinostat), which is marketed by the U.S. pharmaceutical company Merck (NYSE: MRK), is an oral drug already …

It has been ten days since the 2011 annual meeting of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy (ASH) came to a close.

Since the meeting started, The Beacon has been providing detailed coverage in the form of discussion forum postings, daily up­dates, and in-depth articles about key re­search findings.

In this and The Beacon's next article about the meeting, how­ever, the per­spective changes a bit.

The focus shifts to the bigger picture -- to questions like: "What was the im­pact of the meeting?", and …

Yesterday was the third day of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy (ASH) 2011 Annual Meeting in San Diego, and it was packed full with mul­ti­ple myeloma-related pre­sen­ta­tions. Presentations started early in the morn­ing and con­tinued through the afternoon.

The morn­ing pre­sen­ta­tions about po­ten­tial new myeloma ther­a­pies will be covered in this up­date, and pre­sen­ta­tions from the rest of the day will be covered in addi­tional up­dates.

MLN9708

During the first talk of the day, Dr. Paul Richardson from the Dana-Farber Cancer In­sti­tute in Boston pre­sented re­­sults from a Phase 1 study of …

Yesterday was the first day of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy (ASH) 2011 annual meeting, which is being held in San Diego.

Although the day featured no oral pre­sen­ta­tions of new myeloma-related re­search, it started with an in­ter­est­ing educational session focused on mul­ti­ple myeloma.

There also were a num­ber of poster pre­sen­ta­tions during the day summarizing im­por­tant new re­search findings.

The educational session in the morn­ing featured three pre­sen­ta­tions by lead­ing myeloma spe­cialists.

Induction Therapy And Maintenance Treatment

The first pre­sen­ta­tion was by Dr. Donna Reece of the Princess Margaret Hospital in …

Earlier this year, an inter­na­tional group of myeloma experts pub­lished a review of ongoing re­search into new myeloma treat­ments.  This review not only described a wide range of po­ten­tial new myeloma treat­ments, but also in­cluded the experts' thoughts on where re­search into new treat­ments should go in the future.

Given the recent new drug appli­ca­tion for car­filz­o­mib and the upcoming annual meeting of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy -- which undoubtedly will host dis­cus­sions of many po­ten­tial new myeloma treat­ments -- it seems an appro­pri­ate time to go back to the experts' review from …

Thursday was the third day of the Inter­na­tional Myeloma Workshop (IMW) in Paris.  There were pre­sen­ta­tions from early morn­ing through the evening.

Some of the highlights from the first part of Day 3 of the conference are summarized in this article.  Highlights from the sec­ond part of the day are summarized in a separate article (see re­lated Beacon news).

Treating Older, Newly Diagnosed Myeloma Patients

The first session of the morn­ing was about treating newly diag­nosed mul­ti­ple myeloma patients over the age of 65 years, spe­cif­i­cally those who are in­eli­gible for …

Each year at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of He­ma­tol­ogy we hear about dozens of new drugs that are able to annihilate mul­ti­ple myeloma cells in the test tube and in animal models. Unfortunately, at the same meeting, we also sit through pre­sen­ta­tions and walk by posters of drugs that looked hot in the laboratory but then fail to work when given to real patients with myeloma.

This is not new. It has been the story with myeloma for ages. The myeloma cells are smart and are seemingly able to …