With a menu featuring everything from cutting-edge science to DEI and diet, ASH 2024 certainly offered congress attendees food for thought

By Susanne Bobadilla and Georgia Attfield

The American Society of Hematology’s (ASH) latest annual meeting wrapped in San Diego in December, with the event serving up a little bit of everything. While past congresses seemed to gravitate towards a specific theme, this year’s meeting was a masterclass in balance – a blend of high science, high tech and high hopes.

ASH 2024 delivered a blockbuster lineup of advances in haematology. From practical guidance on optimising current treatments to game-changing gene therapies and AI disruption, sessions showcased progress and challenges in equal measure. Discussions on health equity and intergenerational mentorship highlighted the importance of collaboration and inclusion, while a fascinating plenary session looked at how diet – specifically keto – could enhance the effectiveness of CAR-T therapies.

The exhibit hall combined science, art and humanity with powerful storytelling around clinical practice, patient journeys and DEI. From a marketing perspective there was a notable shift in approach; interactive games and quizzes – once a staple for booth engagement – were scarce. Instead, booths leaned into sleek virtual reality experiences (shout-out to BMS) and practical essentials, with one of the biggest hits – GSK’s charging stations – literally helping keep attendees plugged in.

Here’s our take on the trends that stood out.

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) were woven into the fabric of the congress, with countless initiatives focused on breaking down systemic barriers in haematology. The message was clear: inclusivity isn’t an option, it’s an expectation. ASH’s Health Equity Studio was a standout, showcasing actionable ways to improve diversity not just in clinical trials and patient care but among the haematology workforce too. Strategies focused on overcoming language barriers and eradicating disparities in marginalised communities.

Pharma leaned in, with highlights including J&J’s degendering protocols to ensure better care for LGBTQIA+ patients, and Sanofi and Incyte’s shared strategies for increasing representation in trial recruitment. For pharma, these initiatives provide an opportunity to not just ‘talk the talk’ but also ‘walk the walk’. DEI-driven messaging is no longer a check-the-box exercise, it’s a competitive differentiator.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) – often at the centre of the DEI debate due to its disproportionate impact on black populations and people of colour – was a major focus, with an emphasis on unmet needs and new treatment paradigms.

‘If there was one unifying theme across the meeting, it was the power of storytelling, with companies marrying tech, data and creativity to make emotional connections with attendees’

The therapeutic landscape for SCD is buoyant, with gene therapies showing huge promise, and advances in prime editing and CRISPR/Cas9 leading the way. However, amid the excitement, presenters acknowledged a stubborn reality: gene therapies remain inaccessible to many. As such, one session provided practical guidance on maximising the benefits of existing disease-modifying treatments, urging providers to collaborate more with patients to understand real-world experiences and needs. The importance of patient partnerships was a recurrent theme throughout the week.

Real-world data presented at ASH suggested allogeneic stem cell transplantation is still the benchmark treatment for SCD, offering high cure rates with low GVHD incidence.  But arguably the biggest headline in the category came in the plenary, where stunning data from the phase 2 PIVOT trial showed hydroxyurea slashing both vaso-occlusive episodes (VOEs) and hospitalisations in HbSC disease. The findings confirming why hydroxyurea is still a staple despite advances in the category.

Also trending was the need to establish clinical measures of care for SCD in the Accident & Emergency (A&E) department. Multiple presentations emphasised the need to improve implementation of guidelines to administer analgesics within 60 minutes, including a range of options, like intranasal fentanyl care for VOEs. These quality measures aren’t without controversy but they’re gaining traction.

If ASH 2024 had a ‘mic drop’ moment, it was the plenary unveiling of results from the phase 3 study of blinatumomab in standard-risk paediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL). Pairing blinatumomab with chemo achieved a jaw-dropping 96% three-year disease-free survival rate, setting a new standard in childhood leukaemia.  The focus now shifts to reducing chemotherapy intensity to make treatment more tolerable and expanding access to blinatumomab globally.

Elsewhere, updates on other haematologic malignancies revealed big advances:

• Mantle cell lymphoma: trials like TRIANGLE and ENRICH showed that combining ibrutinib with chemoimmunotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation has the potential to redefine treatment protocols. TRIANGLE reported an 88%, three-year failure-free survival rate with no apparent increase in toxicity
• Follicular lymphoma: bispecific antibodies like mosunetuzumab are proving themselves as first-line therapies. A phase 2 trial of subcutaneous mosunetuzumab reported high complete response rates and manageable side effects
• Multiple myeloma: quadruplet regimens and maintenance strategies with daratumumab are carving out new, more personalised approaches, especially for frailer patients
• Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma: advances like polatuzumab vedotin (anti-CD79b monoclonal antibody) and CD22-directed CAR-T treatments are showing promise for high-risk and heavily pretreated patients
• Classical Hodgkin’s lymphoma: nivolumab plus AVD (N+AVD) is setting a new standard for first-line therapy, offering better progression-free survival with fewer long-term toxicities.

Precision medicine was the focus of another big buzz, with transcriptomics technologies, epigenetics and metabolism-driven therapies all making waves. CAR-T therapy, already a game changer, is getting supercharged too. Intriguing research showed that a ketogenic diet – low in carbs, high in fat – enhances CAR-T’s cancer-fighting capabilities through a molecule called beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB). This ketone body, produced during ketogenic dieting, boosts T-cell metabolism, leading to better tumour control and improved survival in preclinical models for lymphoma, leukaemia and pancreatic cancer.

The findings were so compelling that researchers analysed patient data from CAR-T clinical trials, confirming that higher BHB levels correlated with superior outcomes.
We also saw how tools like FoodSeq – which sequences food DNA – can track how diets influence gut microbiome changes and, in turn, help us understand why certain people respond to treatment better than others. Who would have thought that something as personal as what we eat could shape immunotherapy outcomes?

AI burned bright, with its potential to revolutionise haematology on full display. But with great power comes great responsibility, and a heap of ethical questions. Projects like GenoMed4All and AI-ECG algorithms showcased AI’s promise in diagnostics and research to advance predictive modelling. The elephant in the room? Bias, privacy and transparency dominated discussions about how AI-driven tools can be implemented responsibly.

Finally, if there was one unifying theme across the meeting, it was the power of storytelling, with companies marrying tech, data and creativity to make emotional connections with attendees, with an artistic focus on patient and healthcare professionals’ experiences adding a touch of humanity to the science on show.

A particular highlight was AbbVie’s booth, which invited haematologists to type in key moments from their careers – like graduating, seeing their first patient, overcoming challenges – then translated them into an artistic representation on the big screen. Personalisation at its best.

Ultimately, ASH 2024 was a reminder that innovation in haematology isn’t just about the science – it’s about how we tell the story to drive meaningful change. For pharma marketers, the opportunities are endless.

Susanne Bobadilla is Executive Director, Global Medical Strategy at VML Health and Georgia Attfield is a Clinical Management Consultant