ASH Annual Meeting 2025: How the MMRF is Driving New Discoveries and Collaborations

Once again, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation’s programs and data are the catalysts for some of the most important updates at the 2025 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting. The MMRF will also bring together institutional and pharma partners for a day of pre-conference meetings to share learnings, review emerging data, and more.

Every December, more than 30,000 leading researchers, clinicians, and patient advocates gather at the ASH Annual Meeting to discuss the latest discoveries in multiple myeloma and other blood diseases.

“ASH is an important opportunity for the MMRF team to not only present original research and hear updates from the wider community, but to create opportunities for the kind of collaboration and knowledge-sharing that drives innovation and the next breakthroughs for patients,” said MMRF President and CEO Michael Andreini.

MMRF Data Continue to Power Insights Across the Field

To meaningfully advance patient care and outcomes, researchers need large sets of high-quality data like that from the MMRF’s seminal CoMMpass℠ Study and Immune Atlas project. CoMMpass- and Immune Atlas–enabled research will again take center stage at ASH, underpinning 28 oral and poster presentations from the MMRF and leading academic institutions and medical centers.

Launched over a decade ago, CoMMpass followed more than 1,100 patients for eight years, mapping genomic and clinical data to patient outcomes. Its open-access data have now been included in hundreds of published and presented studies, powering research on myeloma risk, immune profiling, mechanisms of resistance, and more.

Using highly sophisticated sequencing technology and samples from CoMMpass, the Immune Atlas project has now profiled 1.39 million bone marrow cells from newly diagnosed myeloma patients. This has generated groundbreaking insights into how the immune microenvironment shapes disease progression, treatment response, and relapse risk.

Of these abstracts, the MMRF team will present a poster featuring new research on the immune microenvironment. Using paired immune and tumor cell profiling from the MMRF Immune Atlas, this study integrates single-cell and bulk RNA sequencing data from CoMMpass participants to help decipher which myeloma patients might be most likely to respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy that has shown promise for multiple myeloma.

All of these presentations demonstrate the powerful ongoing impact of CoMMpass and Immune Atlas, which serve as foundational resources for myeloma.

“CoMMpass and the Immune Atlas offer an unparalleled genomic map of multiple myeloma and continue to accelerate myeloma research,” said the MMRF’s Chief Scientific Officer George Mulligan, PhD. “These programs underscore the work we’re leading to optimize treatments for myeloma patients.”

The MMRF team will present an additional poster that leverages data from its MyDRUG℠ platform trial. This analysis examines how daratumumab-based quadruplet therapy influences T-cell activation and signaling over time. Results from this work can be further studied to improve targeted and immune therapies for myeloma. This report also demonstrates how the MMRF integrates translational research within its clinical programs.

Fostering Collaboration for Future Breakthroughs

Beyond MMRF-backed presentations throughout the next four days, the Foundation also continues to be an important convener at global meetings like ASH. Yesterday, it brought pharma and institutional partners together for an enriching day of workshops, events and meetings.

Investigators and project managers from several key Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium® (MMRC®) sites throughout the U.S. came together to discuss progress on its many clinical and translational research initiatives, including the MMRC’s Horizon adaptive platform clinical trials initiative and Translational Research Umbrella study. Both play a significant role in advancing and improving the medical community’s understanding of multiple myeloma treatments.

Clinical investigators conducting the Horizon One clinical trial in patients with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma discussed how they have exceeded enrollment goals, including enrolling a more representative patient population than any other multiple myeloma trial to date.  The MMRC also shared that the Horizon Two trial—which is focused on advancing innovative treatments for patients with high-risk, newly diagnosed multiple myeloma—will soon launch. This is the 101^st clinical trial conducted through the MMRC.

The MMRF also announced that two new clinical research sites have joined the MMRC: the University of Pennsylvania and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The addition of these locations expands the Foundation’s clinical research consortium network to 22 leading myeloma centers.

The MMRF also brought together researchers, clinicians and biopharma representatives for our annual “Immunity Workshop” to consider future clinical and translational studies harnessing the MMRF’s aforementioned Immune Atlas project, which has already helped shape the field’s understanding of the immune microenvironment in multiple myeloma.

And other MMRF partners will join several other Foundation-sponsored events during ASH. The 10 academic sites that collaborate on the high-risk, newly diagnosed Myeloma Accelerator Challenge Program will gather to share the most recent progress in a joint meeting of U.S.- and European Union–based clinical centers. Meanwhile the early- and mid-career scientists that the MMRF currently supports through its Scholars and Fellows program will share exciting progress on their ongoing projects.

By connecting the myeloma community and making our valuable data accessible to the research community, the MMRF is transforming insights into action and advancing its mission to accelerate a cure for every patient.

“At ASH, we’re reminded that progress in multiple myeloma doesn’t happen in isolation,” Mulligan said. “It’s the result of partnerships, a focus on new datasets, and broad data sharing—exactly the kind of collaboration that the MMRF alone is built to drive.”

Follow along on the MMRF blog and on social media for daily recaps from the ASH Annual Meeting 2025.