Dr. Desai Discusses CMML Initiative With LLS

Pinkal Desai, MD, of Weill Cornell Medical College, discusses the chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) initiative with The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS), and what she hopes to see for patients with CMML in the next five to 10 years.
Dr. Desai said that it has been a “challenge” to have dedicated CMML trials, and therefore to develop specific drugs directed toward the biology of CMML.
“One of the issues CMML patients face is that CMML is what we call a rarer disease,” Dr. Desai began. “But the incidence is similar to other disorders like myelofibrosis, where there are dedicated trials, approvals, and big phase III trials happening. Somehow, as a disease, [CMML] was sort of second to myelodysplastic syndromes and most trials have lumped these two together when the biology is actually different.”
The initiative with LLS hopes to alleviate these challenges and move CMML-directed therapies from development into phase III trials, according to Dr. Desai.
“I hope that as institutions are pulling more resources into this and [with] LLS's involvement that we are able to distinguish who is going to progress rapidly, who is going to progress late, and what kind of drugs should be targeted to either of these two populations,” she concluded.