Ankit Kansagra, Associate Vice President Oncology Integration and Community Alliance at Tampa General Hospital, Adjunct Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center, shared on LinkedIn:
“A patient sat across from me in clinic. His myeloma had relapsed again – this time on a quadruplet regimen, the kind of combination we reach for when we’re bringing our best to the fight.
I started walking him through what came next. The bispecifics. How one targets BCMA, another targets GPRC5D, how each had shown remarkable responses on its own.
He listened, then stopped me with a question:
‘Doc – you keep telling me about all these amazing bispecifics out there. So why don’t you just give me more than one of them, and go kill my myeloma?’
I paused. Because he wasn’t wrong. He had, in one plain sentence, asked the exact question our field has been working to answer.
And this week, we have data.
In MonumenTAL-6, a global Phase 3 trial in relapsed/refractory myeloma, the doublet of TECVAYLI (teclistamab, anti-BCMA) and TALVEY (talquetamab, anti-GPRC5D) – two bispecifics, two targets, at the same time – reduced the risk of progression or death by 89% (PFS HR 0.11) and the risk of death by 62% versus standard of care.
A hazard ratio of 0.11 in a randomized trial is not a number we see often in a career. It’s what happens when you hit myeloma from two directions before it has time to escape.
My patient’s instinct was right. He asked it on Wednesday. The science had been chasing the same answer for years.
I’ve been blessed to be part of this trial from its inception – to help ask the question, design the study, and watch the results come in. My hope now is simple: to deliver this to the patients sitting across from me, the ones who ask the honest questions that push all of us forward.
To the patients and families, the global investigators, and my colleagues at Johnson & Johnson who made this possible – thank you. This was ours, together.
I can’t wait for the day I walk back into clinic and tell that patient: you were right – and now I can offer you exactly what you asked for.”
Title: Monumental-6: A Phase 3 Study of Talquetamab + Pomalidomide or Talquetamab + Teclistamab Vs Elotuzumab + Pomalidomide + Dexamethasone (EPd) or Pomalidomide + Bortezomib + Dexamethasone (PVd) in Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma Who Received 1-4 Prior Lines of Therapy, Including Lenalidomide and an Anti-CD38 Monoclonal Antibody
Authors: Ajay K. Nooka, Hira Mian, Cindy Lee, Paula Rodríguez-Otero, Shaji Kumar, Hermann Einsele, Deeksha Vishwamitra, Diego Vieyra, Colleen Kane, Michele Kosh, Tara J. Masterson, Christoph Heuck, Ankit Kansagra, Philippe Moreau
Read the Full Artilce.
Other articles featuring Ankit Kansagra on OncoDaily.