New agents for multiple myeloma

The treatment paradigm for multiple myeloma has significantly shifted in the past decade, as a result of new treatment agents, a better refinement of the supportive care approaches, a deeper understanding of the disease biology, and risk stratification-based approaches to treatment of myeloma. However, a relatively small proportion of patients are able to obtain long-term disease control with any of these treatment approaches, with the majority relapsing after various treatments and eventually becoming refractory to all available options. Hence it is imperative, we continue to work on developing newer treatments that represent improved versions of available drug classes as well as newer classes of drugs. In addition, there has been significant focus on developing new combinations of existing as well as novel therapeutic agents. In the current chapter, we will examine the new drugs that have been recently approved as well as those that are currently in clinical trials. Broadly, these drugs can be classified into those belonging to currently used classes of drugs, and new drug classes.