MMRF Data and Programs Drive New Insights Presented at 2026 IMS Annual Meeting

The 23^rd IMS Annual Meeting showcased the impact of the MMRF’s research programs and data.

The International Myeloma Society (IMS) Annual Meeting is the leading scientific conference in multiple myeloma. Thousands of the field’s top clinicians, researchers, companies, and organizations like the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation® (MMRF®) come together to share results and data from studies and trials on every facet of disease.

MMRF scientists and collaborators from preeminent academic medical centers and research institutions gave more than 10 oral and poster presentations, including a featured plenary presentation about a potential new therapeutic strategy for certain high-risk myeloma patients.

As in other years, the MMRF’s data and programs were prominently featured in studies by others in the field, underpinning more than 30 oral and poster presentations. In addition, the MMRF’s Chief Medical Officer Hearn Cho, MD, PhD joined IMS President Philippe Moreau, MD for a discussion about patient-oriented research.

“One of the MMRF’s core goals is to generate resources that enable discoveries across the myeloma research community—an approach that few nonprofit organizations pursue at this scale,” said MMRF Chief Scientific Officer George Mulligan, PhD. “At the 2026 IMS Annual Meeting, the MMRF team presented important findings based on our data, and we saw investigators use MMRF data to answer critical questions about the immune system, treatment response, and disease progression. This is the impact we have by designing and investing in singular large-scale collaborative research projects and making those resources broadly available to the entire field.”

Below, read how the MMRF’s data, programs, and team members were highlighted throughout the IMS meeting.

The growing role of the immune system in myeloma

Treatment for myeloma has undergone a profound shift in the last decade, reflecting the field’s expanded understanding of the immune system’s role in the disease.

For years, myeloma drug development focused on killing myeloma cells directly, and several therapies dramatically improved patient outcomes. More recent research has focused on harnessing patients’ immune systems. As a result, newer therapies like CAR T-cell therapy and bispecific antibodies are designed to mobilize the body’s own immune cells to kill myeloma cells.

Much of the science presented at this year’s IMS meeting reflects this evolution. Across several oral and poster presentations, researchers explored how the immune system influences treatment response, disease progression, and survival. These types of studies are helping researchers identify which patients are most likely to benefit from existing therapies and uncover potential new treatments and ways to improve outcomes. The MMRF helped drive this work both by making novel scientific contributions and by sharing recently published MMRF Immune Atlas data with the rest of the field.

The MMRF launched the Immune Atlas project in 2019, collaborating with five medical centers to create the field’s most comprehensive, publicly available map of the myeloma immune system by profiling individual cells from bone marrow of newly diagnosed patients. The Immune Atlas project has already generated several important discoveries about the myeloma immune microenvironment, and at this year’s IMS meeting, various researchers tapped into Immune Atlas data for their own studies.

In two poster presentations, the MMRF team identified immune cells that may impact outcomes from specific treatments. They found that Darzalex® (daratumumab) consistently increased a group of immune cells called CD8⁺ TEMRA T cells, suggesting that this therapy may work by strengthening a patient’s immune response. In another poster, the MMRF team showed that newly diagnosed patients with higher levels of group of immune cells called stem-like CD8 T cells achieved deeper remissions after Revlimid® (lenalidomide), Velcade (bortezomib®), dexamethasone (RVd) and high-dose chemotherapy followed by stem-cell transplant. The authors concluded that stem-like CD8 T cells were associated with an improved response to Darzalex.

Immune Atlas collaborators from Washington University in St. Louis also gave a notable oral presentation co-authored by members of the MMRF team about bone marrow changes before and after BCMA-directed CAR T-cell therapy. They reported that CAR T-cell therapy reshaped tumor and immune cells in the bone marrow. Patients who experienced longer progression-free survival after CAR T showed signs of a stronger immune response. These findings add to our understanding of why some patients experience longer-lasting responses to CAR T-cell therapy than others.

From MMRF data to discovery

Beyond its contributions to immunology, the MMRF’s data, programs, and funding drove new studies on disease biology, risk, and potential therapeutic targets for myeloma. Data from the MMRF CoMMpass^SM Study—widely considered to be one of the most complete molecular portraits of any cancer—generated more than 30 presentations at the 2026 IMS Annual Meeting, demonstrating how this landmark dataset is continuing to support discoveries by myeloma researchers across the field more than 15 years after the study launched.

An important oral presentation co-authored by the MMRF team was selected for the plenary session on Friday. This study used CoMMpass data to look at a high-risk subtype of myeloma called t(4;14) that has been associated with worse outcomes. Researchers from Emory University, the MMRF, and other institutions found that patients with this subtype had significantly higher levels of DNA methylation, a process that influences which genes are turned on and off. They traced this pattern to an overactivity of a protein called NSD2, which is known to be activated in t(4;14) myeloma. Researchers showed that myeloma cells with a high NSD2 activity are sensitive to drugs that reduce DNA methylation. This may be a promising treatment strategy for patients with this high-risk form of myeloma, and initial studies of drugs targeting DNA methylation are underway.

A team from the MMRF presented findings on the Duffy null genotype—an inherited genetic trait affecting two-thirds of individuals of African descent as well as a significant proportion of individuals of Brazilian descent—and how it may impact myeloma treatment outcomes. An analysis of approximately 900 newly diagnosed myeloma patients in CoMMpass, showed that both patients of African descent and Duffy null patients often had worse clinical outcomes. However, the use of RVd triplet treatment with a transplant led to significantly improved progression-free and overall survival.

The MMRF also presented a poster describing a new approach to identifying high-risk genomic abnormalities (including the aforementioned t(4;14) subtype) using models validated with CoMMpass data. This approach may give researchers another tool to classify high-risk disease.

The team behind the MMRF Virtual Lab® has been attending major myeloma conferences and meetings since the platform launched late last year. At IMS, they were invited to outline how the platform unifies genomic and clinical data from more than 1,100 patients into a single research environment. By making myeloma data easier to access, explore, and analyze, Virtual Lab allows investigators to study questions that would be difficult or impossible to answer using data from any one research institution or hospital.

Finally, MMRF staff co-authored an oral presentation with researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute of MIT, Harvard, and other institutions that looked at the asymptomatic myeloma precursor conditions monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) and smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM). Researchers examined how MGUS and SMM affect the immune system years before active myeloma development, finding that as abnormal plasma cells increase, levels of a key immune-supporting protein called APRIL decline.

This offers a potential explanation for why MGUS and SMM patients experience impaired immune function before they develop active myeloma. By better understanding the earliest immune changes in MGUS and SMM, researchers can then identify markers signaling active disease and opportunities for earlier intervention. These findings were the result of a multi-year collaboration between the MMRF and Dana-Farber aimed at understanding myeloma precursor conditions.

Other MMRF activities at IMS

Beyond the translational and clinical research detailed above, the MMRF also shared learnings about the impact of its patient education programs and Patient Navigation Center (PNC) in two posters. Uniquely, the MMRF routinely measures the impact of these programs on patients’ care decisions and actions—and publishes its findings for the field.

MMRF teams shared that participants in these programs overwhelmingly took positive actions related to their care after attending MMRF educational events or engaging with a member of the PNC. Those positive steps included things like seeking second opinions and discussing treatment goals with care teams. This research validates the role of these programs, especially in an increasingly complex myeloma treatment landscape.

Beyond scientific presentations, the MMRF’s Chief Medical Officer Hearn Cho, MD, PhD represented the organization on a panel of myeloma patient groups from the U.S., Europe, and Australia, and MMRF staffers met with dozens of companies to discuss new treatments.

“The 2026 IMS Annual Meeting demonstrated the power of open, collaborative science and the ongoing impact of the MMRF’s model,” Mulligan said. “Whether researchers are using our data or the MMRF team is presenting findings, the breadth and depth of the organization’s contributions were especially evident at this meeting. No other myeloma organization contributes across the full spectrum of research and patient support the way the MMRF does.”