The United States (US) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved marstacimab-hncq, an anti-tissue factor pathway inhibitor, for routine prophylaxis to prevent or reduce the frequency of bleeding episodes in adult and pediatric patients 12 years of age and older with hemophilia A (HA) without factor VIII inhibitors or hemophilia B (HB) without factor IX inhibitors (neutralizing antibodies).¹ The approval was based on results from the phase 3 BASIS trial, which showed a reduction in the annualized bleeding rate (ABR) with marstacimab-hncq compared to on-demand treatment and routine prophylaxis in patients with HA or HB without inhibitors.^1,2

Despite being the most prevalent cancer among children, over 90% of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cases are cured in most developed countries^.1 This has largely been attributed to the introduction of risk stratification protocols and risk-directed therapies.² However, there remains heterogeneity in treatment responses within risk groups which suggests the need for risk stratification to be further refined.² The predictive potential of CD9, a tetraspanin family protein that regulates cell motility, adhesion and signaling, in survival outcomes of patients with childhood B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL) was previously highlighted in a local single-center investigational study.³ Thereafter, researchers from The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) and clinicians in the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital conducted a nationwide, multicenter, retrospective study to validate clinical performance of CD9 as a prognostic biomarker in childhood ALL.²

Patients with multiple myeloma (MM) are highly susceptible to developing relapsed and refractory (RR) disease towards lenalidomide and proteasome inhibitors (PIs) and require new active treatments at relapse. As such, novel treatment options like isatuximab, a monoclonal antibody (mAb) that targets