Improving efficacy by combining drugs has been a mainstay of cancer therapy but adding new targeted drugs together based on very early-stage data is not working out, especially when one of the drugs is barely active on its own.

While the big pharma names dominate the ASCO cancer congress, it is also a chance to shine for emerging small-to-medium biopharma companies.

The company aims to file for desmoid tumors in the second half of 2022, but it has more than half a dozen combination programs with BCMA-targeting therapies in multiple myeloma.

Updates at ASH for bispecifics targeting BCMA, GPRC5D and FcRH5 from Regeneron, Janssen, Pfizer, Roche, AbbVie and Harpoon show monotherapy efficacy, initial combination data and potential safety differentiation.