Iberdomide increases innate and adaptive immune cell subsets in the bone marrow of patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma

Abstract

Iberdomide is a potent cereblon E3 ligase modulator (CELMoD agent) with promising efficacy and safety as a monotherapy or in combination with other therapies in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM). Using a custom mass cytometry panel designed for large-scale immunophenotyping of the bone marrow tumor microenvironment (TME), we demonstrate significant increases of effector T and natural killer (NK) cells in a cohort of 93 patients with multiple myeloma (MM) treated with iberdomide, correlating findings to disease characteristics, prior therapy, and a peripheral blood immune phenotype. Notably, changes are dose dependent, associated with objective response, and independent of prior refractoriness to MM therapies. This suggests that iberdomide broadly induces innate and adaptive immune activation in the TME, contributing to its antitumor efficacy. Our approach establishes a strategy to study treatment-induced changes in the TME of patients with MM and, more broadly, patients with cancer and establishes rational combination strategies for iberdomide with immune-enhancing therapies to treat MM.