New Therapy for Multiple Myeloma

A new drug, bortezomib (Velcade for Injection), has shown the ability to slow disease progression and in some cases achieve complete remission among heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma who have failed as many as six lines of prior therapy. The drug has been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for patients who have received at least two prior therapies and have demonstrated disease progression on the last therapy.

The drug is the first of a new class of drugs called proteasome inhibitors and is the first new treatment for multiple myeloma to be approved in more than a decade. The proteasome is an enzyme complex that exists in all cells and plays an important role in degrading proteins that control the cell cycle and cellular processes. By blocking the proteasome, the new drug disrupts numerous biologic pathways, including those related to the growth and survival of cancer cells.

A multicenter phase II trial involved patients with advanced disease of whom 91% were refractory to their most recent therapy. Overall, the response rate for complete and partial responders was 27.7%, and almost one out of every five patients experienced a clinical remission. The median survival for all patients was 16 months. The drug was developed by Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Cambridge, MA, USA).

"With its new and unique mechanism of action of inhibiting the proteasome, Velcade is different from traditional chemotherapies and represents a new treatment option for patients,” said Kenneth Anderson, M.D., of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston (MA, USA).




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