What the trial was testing
The AQUILA enrolled 390 patients with multiple myeloma. The study was sponsored by Janssen Research & Development, LLC and tracked outcomes across the full group of patients who matched the trial's eligibility profile.
It was a large trial designed to confirm whether the treatment works well enough for wider use. Trials at this stage are designed to produce evidence regulators and physicians can act on — not just observations to follow up later.
What the results showed
Treatment cut the risk of progression to active blood cancer or death by 51%.
The New England journal of medicine · 2025 · NCT03301220
These findings — that of progressing to active blood cancer or death with early treatment vs. monitoring — were published in the The New England journal of medicine and represent the headline result of the study.
Researchers tracked outcomes across 390 patients enrolled in the trial. The result was consistent enough across the group that the team felt confident reporting it.
What this means for patients
For patients with multiple myeloma, this result changes the calculus on what to ask their care team about. Whether it changes day-to-day care depends on factors like disease subtype, prior treatments, and where the patient is in their care journey.
What you can do now
If you have high-risk smoldering myeloma, this study shows that early treatment may keep you healthier longer instead of waiting for the cancer to become active. This injection is FDA-approved for active multiple myeloma and is being studied for earlier stages. Talk to your doctor about whether early treatment makes sense for your situation.
Eligibility for the treatments mentioned above depends on specific test results and clinical history. Bring this summary, the trial name, and your most recent labs or pathology report to your next visit.
Open multiple myeloma trials
A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy of Cemsidomide + Dexamethasone in Participants With Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma
This is a Phase 2, open-label, single-arm, multicenter study to assess the antimyeloma activity and further characterize the safety, tolerability, PK, and PD of cemsidomide in combination with dexamethasone in participants with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (r/r MM).
Measurable Residual Disease-Guided Post-Transplant Elranatamab Maintenance
This study evaluates an individualized approach combining highly active maintenance treatment with elranatamab with peripheral blood-based clonotypic measurable residual disease (MRD) testing in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. The overall goal is to generate efficacy data for a personalized maintenance approach using bone marrow-based MRD testing (clonoSEQ) to guide post-autologous hematopoietic cell transplant (AHCT) maintenance with elranatamab for this patient population.