Once quickly lethal and still humbling, multiple myeloma may be in a ‘golden age’ of treatment

If you can call someone who gets a rare form of cancer lucky, then Deb Graff says she fits the bill.

At age 72, Graff has survived nine years with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer whose life expectancy used to be measured in months.

“I wasn’t ready to go anywhere,” said Graff, who lives in South Dennis, Mass., on Cape Cod. “I wanted to see my grandkids grow up and still be an aggravation to my husband.”

She was lucky enough to get multiple myeloma after the 2003 release of a drug called Velcade (bortezomib), one of the first therapies to directly target multiple myeloma. Velcade, plus more than 20 other approvals since then, have transformed multiple myeloma care. For three-quarters of patients, a disease that once brought a three-year life expectancy has become a long-term, chronic illness.

Now, multiple myeloma is poised for another inflection point.

There are 89 experimental drugs currently being tested in people, according to Biomedtracker, a research unit of Informa. Some are improvements on existing drugs, others have found new ways to target the cancer cells; a few