Self-Administered Subcutaneous Isatuximab May Ease Multiple Myeloma Treatment Burden: Xavier Leleu, MD, PhD

During the final part of an interview conducted at the European Hematology Association 2025 Congress, Xavier Leleu, MD, PhD, head of the Department of Haematology and the Myeloma Clinic at Hôpital La Mileterie, shares his vision for a future where on-body delivery systems for subcutaneous isatuximab could enable patient self-administration, potentially transforming care delivery for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

Watch parts 1 and 2 to learn more about the background, objectives, and findings of the phase 3 IRAKLIA trial (NCT05405166), which Leleu presented earlier this month at the meeting.

This transcript was lightly edited; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

What are the next steps to integrate on-body delivery systems for subcutaneous isatuximab into clinical practice?

The number of patients we see with myeloma is constantly increasing. It's increasing because the incidence rate increases, but the prevalence, the survival of the patient, increases. In a city like my city, we see 200 [patients with] myeloma every week, [with] only 3 physicians to see 200 [patients with] myeloma every week.

It's increasing, so we need isatuximab, we need daratumumab. We need to have various options, but we need the options to be very, very convenient, quick, simple, [and] friendly for the patients. The future of the treatment [of] cancer, when a disease becomes chronic, is that the patient can be entirely autonomous.

I can imagine, in France, the patient will go with his prescription, almost like an antibiotic, to the pharmacy, get the stuff, bring it home, [and] inject himself. He, she would inject on [his or her] arm with the product because once educated, once trained, the patient could be entirely autonomous to inject the drug, like G-CSF [granulocyte colony-stimulating factor], like EPO [epoetin].

Many of my patients, they don't ask a nurse. They do it themselves. I can imagine that could be the same for isatuximab. That will be the first time ever that a chemo[therapy] drug, although it's an immunotherapy, but it's considered chemo[therapy] globally, is self-injected by the patient.

The future, I think, is country by country. Depending on [the] regulation, it will be different across countries, but really, to make it self-administered by the patient, or nurse-administered, but so much quicker than the regular daratumumab or other subcutaneous formulation manual push drugs that we inject into patients.