Imnovid 4mg

Therapeutic use

Imnovid 4 mg is used together with dexamethasone for the treatment of adults suffering from refractory multiple myeloma after at least two previous therapy regimens with bortezomib and lenalidomide, whose illness has progressed after the last treatment course.

Principle of action

Imnovid is an immunomodulatory agent that impedes distribution and stimulates apoptosis of hematopoietic cancer cells. Moreover, it has been demonstrated to increase T cell- and natural killer cell-mediated immunity and to impede the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines.

Way of use.

Imnovid 4 mg is an anti-tumor drug, whose active component is called pomalidomide. It is taken together with dexamethasone (anti-inflammatory agent) for the treatment of multiple myeloma (a type of bone marrow cancer). It should be taken after receiving at least two therapies with bortezomib and lenalidomide, and whose illness progressed after the last therapy.

As the number of patients with MM is low, the illness is regarded “rare”, while Imnovid was identified as an “orphan drug” (a pharmaceutical agent intended for the treatment of rare illnesses) in 2009.

Recommended dosage

The common initial dose of Imnovid is 4 mg once a day orally on days 1-21 of repeated 4-week treatment cycles. The common dosage of dexamethasone is 40 mg once a day on the days 1, 8, 15 and 22 of every 4-week treatment cycle. The dosage can be regulated depending on the laboratory test results. The therapy must be continued until the disease progression.
Imnovid should be withdrawn (or the dose should be decreases) if the disease exacerbates or the patient starts to notice certain adverse effects.

Main advantages of Imnovid

Imnovid 4 mg has been explored in one principal study involving about 500 adult patients suffering from multiple myeloma, whose illness didn’t react to or returned after previous therapies. The research compared high-dose dexamethasone alone with Imnovid and low-dose dexamethasone. The main parameter of efficiency was how long it took until the illness advanced.

Imnovid + low-dose dexamethasone proved more efficient than high-dose dexamethasone alone at impeding the advance of multiple myeloma: on average, it took 4 months before the disease progressed in patients using Imnovid + low-dose dexamethasone, compared with 2 months in those using only the high-dose dexamethasone.