SOHO 2026 | Beyond JAK inhibitors: emerging approaches to anemia management in myelofibrosis

I think anemia management has, you know, of course, evolved quite a bit. You’re right, it’s a very, very important problem in myelofibrosis. It is something that affects everybody at some point. You know, it starts with affecting about a third of patients at diagnosis, and then at some point, everybody gets anemic. As the disease progresses, it gets worse. So the first drug to have anemia in its label for myelofibrosis is momelotinib. And that was approved three years ago, September, actually, right around this time, three years ago. And this is a drug that is important to understand. It’s not just an anemia drug, right? It’s a JAK inhibitor that improves anemia. So really, I think momelotinib is something we use in that sense, in that spirit. So if the patient needs a JAK inhibitor for spleen or symptoms or both, but also is anemic, well, you go with momelotinib. I mean, that is what the label would suggest, and that’s what the data would support. But also, to your point, there are many situations where you need an add-on for anemia. You know, you need to support the anemia from the disease or from ruxolitinib. With an add-on agent, maybe ruxolitinib is doing a good job with spleen and symptoms, but just the patient is anemic, you know, or the patient only has anemia without spleen or symptom issues. So in these situations, we need drugs that are like purely for anemia. So there is luscartercept. They had their Phase III readout at EHA 2026 and they have filed for approval. We’ll see what happens. The overall study, you know, actually did not, unfortunately, meet its primary endpoint for the overall study, just missed. But there was a clear difference geographically around the world, which easily explained it. There was just one area of the world where, you know, the placebo performed better than luspatercept, but everywhere else, luspatercept easily beat placebo, significantly beat placebo. So hopeful that that will be approved. I think that’s a very helpful agent. I use it a lot in my practice. We already have a Phase II that supports using it. So I really hope that’s approved. But there was this little bit of a kink in the plans as far as the primary endpoint for the full overall study not being met.

Now, there is also DISC-0974. It has a name nowadays. It’s called selcodebart. And this is a first-in-class anti-hemojuvalin antibody. So they’ve been showing some very nice results as well, including at SOHO. And, you know, both as a single agent and in combination actually with all four approved JAK inhibitors. So they’ve actually combined with rux, fedratinib, pacritinib, momelotinib, which I think is a smart strategy. And they’ve shown that selcodebartmcan improve, you know, hemoglobin responses, transfusion independence in patients who may be on any of the four JAK inhibitors. Now, finally, we presented at SOHO a study that’s just going to roll out on elritercept. So this is a new activin receptor ligand trap or TGF-beta superfamily ligand trap. And this, and the name, as the name suggests, it’s a little bit similar to lusparacept, but actually more similar to sotatercept, which was the first molecule in this class, which went in a different direction in its development. Sotatercept is actually approved for pulmonary hypertension. So very different direction. But elritercept from Takeda, we just had the trial in progress poster at SOHO. And this is, again, like I said, a newer TGF beta superfamily ligand trap that, of course, is intended to improve anemia. But intriguingly, in the Phase II, which was all done in Europe, has shown us spleen symptom and platelet improvements. So it would be very unique if that is really the case, if that bears out in the Phase III, where it’s one drug that can improve anemia, spleen symptoms and platelets. That would be awesome. So look forward to that.

This transcript is AI-generated. While we strive for accuracy, please verify this copy with the video.