Accelerate the Cure
New Clinical Trials for 2025!
Headlines abound…
ONE—”Use of BCL2 inhibitors has the potential to alter practice in the treatment of Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia”. IWMF Board Advisor, Professor Shirley D’ Sa, of University College London Hospitals, Frontiers in Oncology, November, 2024.
TWO—”Play the long game in managing Waldenstrom’s macroglobulinemia (WM)!” Dr. Judith Trotman, U. of Sydney, Australia, IWMF Education Forum, May, 2024.
Both these research clinicians remind us that there is no single best bet in choosing a WM treatment. There are multiple treatments and global clinical trials with high-potential therapies. At IWMF, our job is to share emerging options for patients to discuss with their physicians. Medical advances are based on clinical trials.
Dr. D’ Sa and Dr. Trotman draw attention to a family of BCL-2 proteins with an abnormally high expression in WM and other non-Hodgkins lymphomas. This BCL-2 gene’s aberrant behavior encourages cancer cell survival.
From 30 years of research, scientist physicians discovered ways to inhibit BCL-2 function, with a first-generation drug, venetoclax, and second-generation sonrotoclax. With pre-clinical studies and a Phase One clinical trial, BeiGene has demonstrated sonrotoclax to be a chemotherapy-free, oral pill with potentially less side effects and greater potency than the first-generation therapy.
As we enter 2025, BeiGene is actively enrolling patients in 72 global clinical trial locations.
IWMF’s $31 million, Accelerate the Cure Campaign, sponsors the work of physician scientists at 22 US academic centers who coordinate and set research priorities that will drive us fastest to a cure. Thank you to donors who fund this work! Eleven of our WM-NET (network) centers are actively recruiting patients for this BeiGene trial.