21.8 months without getting worse: a first-in-humans drug holds the line for myeloma patients out of options

Multiple myeloma is a cancer of the blood-forming cells in the bone marrow, and when it comes back after treatment — as it usually does — each new option tends to work for a shorter time than the last. The 56 people in this first-in-humans trial had already been through a median of four to five rounds of therapy. Their new drug, LBL-034 from Nanjing-based Leads Biolabs, works like a bridge: one end grips a marker called GPRC5D on the myeloma cell, the other grips the patient's own immune T cells, pulling the two together so the immune system can kill the cancer. Among the 41 patients treated at the effective doses, the cancer typically stayed quiet for a median of 21.8 months before growing again — about twice as long as reported in the key trials of approved drugs aimed at the same target — and most responses were still holding at the last check. It also worked in the hardest cases: three in four patients whose cancer had spread outside the bone marrow responded, as did six in seven whose disease had already beaten the leading class of immune therapy. Side effects were mostly mild, and the results, presented at Europe's main cancer congress in Madrid, are now headed toward a larger final-stage trial.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation