International Myeloma Society (IMS) Annual Meeting 2026

Iberdomide Combination Doubles Median Time Without Progression in Phase 3 Myeloma Trial

A Bristol Myers Squibb drug combination has reduced the risk of disease progression or death by about half compared with a commonly used regimen in adults with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, according to new Phase 3 results.

In EXCALIBER-RRMM, patients treated with iberdomide, daratumumab, and dexamethasone had a median progression-free survival of 42 months, compared with 20 months for patients receiving daratumumab, bortezomib, and dexamethasone.

The result marks a major milestone for iberdomide, an oral cereblon E3 ligase modulator marketed as ZENBEXUS in the announcement. The study enrolled 800 people, including patients treated as early as their first relapse. The combination met the trial's progression-free survival endpoint; corresponds to a 51 percent lower risk of progression or death during the study period compared with the control regimen.

Iberdomide is taken orally and is designed to alter cereblon activity, a protein involved in regulating other proteins inside cells. The drug's effects are intended to enhance anti-myeloma activity and support immune-mediated tumor control. Bortezomib, by contrast, is a proteasome inhibitor that disrupts protein processing within cancer cells.

What the Results Mean

A median progression-free survival of 42 months means that half of the patients in the ZDd group had not experienced disease progression or died by that time point. In the DVd group, the corresponding median was 20 months. The 22-month difference suggests a substantial delay in progression for patients receiving the iberdomide-based regimen.

Trial Design and Patient Population

EXCALIBER-RRMM is an international, Phase 3, randomized, open-label study. It enrolled adults whose multiple myeloma had progressed after one or two prior treatment lines. The trial compared the efficacy and safety of ZDd with DVd and assessed progression-free survival alongside other outcomes, including minimal residual disease negativity, overall survival, response rates, and safety.

AbbVie's Etentamig Clears Key Bar in Late Stage Myeloma Study, Cutting Progression Risk by More Than Half

AbbVie has shared early but striking findings from a large late stage trial testing its experimental drug etentamig in people battling a form of blood cancer that keeps coming back despite multiple rounds of treatment. The Chicago area drugmaker reported that patients on the therapy responded at nearly double the rate seen in those given currently available treatment options, while also facing a substantially lower chance of their cancer worsening or proving fatal during the study window.

About CERVINO

The trial, known by the shorthand CERVINO, enrolled 393 people whose multiple myeloma had already returned or stopped responding after they had cycled through three separate lines of therapy on average. Everyone in the study had previously been exposed to all three of the major drug categories doctors typically reach for first: a proteasome inhibitor, an immune modulating agent, and an antibody that targets a protein called CD38.

After patients had been followed for a median of just over eleven months, the gap between the two study arms was hard to ignore. Nearly three in four patients on etentamig, 74 percent, saw a measurable response to treatment, compared with under half, 45.7 percent, of those on standard therapy.

Those on etentamig faced a 60 percent lower risk of their cancer advancing or of death during the study period compared with the comparison group, a result reflected in a hazard ratio of 0.40.

Survival data, while still developing, pointed in the same direction. A year after starting treatment, roughly 88 percent of patients on etentamig were still alive, versus 72 percent of those on standard care.

Etentamig Mechanism of Action

Etentamig works by targeting a protein called BCMA, which sits abundantly on the surface of the malignant plasma cells that define multiple myeloma and which those cells depend on to keep growing and to avoid the programmed cell death that would otherwise eliminate them. The drug is engineered with a bivalent binding arm that grips BCMA tightly, paired with a comparatively weak grip on CD3, the immune cell target, a combination scientists believe helps explain its relatively gentle side effect profile without sacrificing potency against the cancer.

Five-Year Follow-Up Finds Half of Early-Relapse Myeloma Patients Remained Progression-Free After One Carvykti Infusion

Long-term follow-up from a small Phase 2 study suggests that a single infusion of Carvykti (ciltacabtagene autoleucel) may keep some patients with early relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma free from progression for at least five years without ongoing maintenance therapy.

What CARTITUDE-2 Cohort A Studied

CARTITUDE-2 is an ongoing, multi-cohort Phase 2 trial evaluating ciltacabtagene autoleucel, also known as cilta-cel, in several multiple myeloma settings. The initial cohort A subgroup included 20 people with relapsed or refractory disease who had received between one and three earlier treatment regimens.

All participants had prior exposure to a proteasome inhibitor and their disease had stopped responding to lenalidomide. This is an important clinical population because patients whose cancer becomes refractory to lenalidomide after early treatment often need a new treatment approach and may have fewer durable options.

Patients received one cilta-cel infusion and did not receive planned maintenance therapy afterward. The primary endpoint in cohort A was minimal residual disease negativity, a highly sensitive measure used to detect very small quantities of myeloma cells remaining after treatment.

Results After About Five Years

At a median follow-up of 60.7 months, half of the cohort remained alive without disease progression. The study reported a median progression-free survival of 60.5 months, meaning the midpoint of the group had gone just over five years before progression or death.

The estimated overall survival rate at five years was 69.2 percent. Median overall survival had not been reached at the data cutoff, which means that fewer than half of patients had died by the time researchers analyzed the results.

Among the three patients who underwent bone marrow testing for minimal residual disease at the five-year point, all were negative at the deepest sensitivity level measured, one myeloma cell in one million cells. That finding is encouraging, although testing was not mandatory under the protocol and was therefore available for only a small subset of the group.

Why Treatment-Free Time Matters

Multiple myeloma is typically managed as a chronic relapsing disease. Patients may move through combinations of immunomodulatory drugs, proteasome inhibitors, anti-CD38 antibodies, bispecific antibodies, CAR T-cell therapies, and other approaches as the cancer returns or stops responding.

In that context, prolonged time without treatment can be meaningful. It may reduce the cumulative burden of clinic visits, ongoing toxicities, treatment-related financial pressures, and the psychological demands of continuous therapy. A durable remission after a single treatment also preserves other therapeutic options for later use if the disease eventually returns.

Cilta-cel is a personalized CAR T-cell therapy. A patient's own T cells are collected, engineered in a laboratory to recognize B-cell maturation antigen on myeloma cells, expanded, and infused back into the patient after preparative chemotherapy. Once in the body, the engineered cells are designed to find and destroy BCMA-expressing myeloma cells.