Looking to threepeat

While Thalomid thalidomide provided Celgene Corp. with its first marketed drug, the product's most important role has been as a structural template for a second generation of analogs that are both safer and more effective. Revlimid lenalidomide now dominates the market for multiple myeloma, while Phase II data presented at this month's American Society of Hematology meeting suggest the company's pomalidomide may be an effective salvage therapy for relapsed or refractory MM, as well as other proliferative disorders.

Celgene's first two immunomodulatory drugs (IMiDs), Thalomid and Revlimid, along with Velcade bortezomib, are part of the established treatment paradigm for MM. Velcade is a small molecule dipeptide boronic acid proteasome inhibitor from Johnson & Johnson and Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., a unit of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd...