AMN Network

The Asian Myeloma Network (AMN) studies are a series of clinical trials on Asian patients with myeloma, plasma cell cancer. The Asian Myeloma Network was established by the International Myeloma Foundation (IMF) in 2011 to carry out clinical trials to bring promising new treatment to Asian Myeloma patients and help IMF in its physician education and patient support outreach in Asia. AMN members are mainly myeloma experts from several Asian countries and regions including Singapore, Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand.

Myeloma, a plasma cell cancer is known to vary with ethnicity. While myeloma incidence for Asians used be relatively lower than for Caucasians, in recent years, Asian myeloma incidence has been fast approaching that for Caucasians, with myeloma becoming a growing health concern in Asia. As myeloma is one of the most common hematologic malignancies, there is a need to better understand the disease and identify effective treatments.

In the last eight years, AMN has successfully launched 5 clinical trials, and there will be a few new AMN studies to be initiated in the next 1-2 years. The AMN001 clinical trial, supported by Celgene Asia Pacific (Merged to BMS), was launched in December 2014 to study the efficacy of novel drug combinations with a new immunomodulatory in relapsed MM Asian patients. Following successful operation of AMN001 study, the AMN002 and AMN003 trials were launched in September 2017 to identify more new study treatment for relapsed MM patients. The AMN002 study was supported by Amgen Inc. in collaboration with the Australian Leukemia and Lymphoma Group (ALLG) with participation by study centres from Australia while the AMN003 project was supported again by Celgene Asia Pacific. Both of the AMN004 and AMN006 were phase II studies supported by Janssen Biotech, these two trials aim to study the efficacy and toxicity of daratumumab in different drug combination in Asian patients with relapsed myeloma or in Newly Diagnosed Transplant Ineligible Multiple Myeloma Patients.

Since the first AMN001 Study, SCRI has provided tremendous assistance to the AMN research team with quality and reliable clinical study support ranging from project and data management, safety management, statistical analysis to research informatics. The AMN decided in 2017 to appoint SCRI as the academic research organisation responsible for all its studies, including new studies that are in planning and preparation.

With SCRI’s able support, the AMN project team can focus on identifying promising new therapies for the Asian MM patients from more than 20 AMN sites from different countries or regions.