Micrograph of a plasmacytoma, the histologic correlate of multiple myeloma. H&E stain. Credit: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0
Patients with relapsed multiple myeloma treated with the immunotherapy teclistamab lived significantly longer and remained in remission far longer than those receiving standard therapies, according to results from a major international Phase III clinical trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting.
The study, led by senior author C. Ola Landgren, M.D., Ph.D., found nearly 70% of patients receiving teclistamab had no disease progression after 18 months—compared with about 27% of patients receiving standard treatments—while nearly two-thirds achieved complete remission, including many with no detectable cancer on highly sensitive testing.
Landgren is chief of the Sylvester Myeloma Institute at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
"Now we have chemotherapy-free immunotherapy options for patients whose myeloma has relapsed for the first time," said Landgren. "We are seeing very deep responses and long clinical benefit from these therapies. This is part of a much bigger transformation happening in myeloma care."
