How the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation is Partnering With Biopharmas

In a recent video interview with Applied Clinical Trials, Michael Andreini, president and CEO of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF), discussed challenges in multiple myeloma clinical trials, including inefficiency, lack of focus on critical patient questions, and underrepresentation of diverse patient populations. Andreini also highlighted the Horizon clinical trial and how MMRF is working to address unmet need in the myeloma research space.

ACT: How is MMRF helping biopharma companies evaluate their multiple myeloma therapies in trials they wouldn’t run on their own?

Andreini: I'll give you a concrete example here, so our first biopharma partner in our Horizon clinical trials program is Johnson & Johnson, and we're helping them to determine what is the optimal dosing strategy for a drug called teclistamab to maximize efficacy and limit safety and tolerability concerns. This is an incredibly important question for Johnson & Johnson to answer, and it's also an important question for patients who will be treated with this therapy, so J&J could conduct this type of trial on their own, but it would take much longer, and would cost them much more than it will cost us because of this adaptive platform model that we've put into place and our consortium of research partners that we have in place, where we have pre-negotiated contracts with all of these sites, so it's a much more efficient process overall. What's attractive about it to J&J and other biopharma partners is that it allows them to more rapidly generate robust randomized control data to support again, answering the question of optimal use of their therapy than they could do otherwise.