On the last day of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Virtual Congress 2020, Exelixis was excited while announcing their exceptional results from two Renal Cell Carcinoma Cohorts of the COSMIC-021 Trial of Cabozantinib in Combination with Atezolizumab. The combination of Cabozantinib/ Atezolizumab demonstrated encouraging clinical activity in previously untreated patients with advanced ccRCC. The combination achieved an ORR of 53% and median PFS of 19.5 months for the 40mg QD cabozantinib dose group and ORR of 58% and median PFS of 15.1 months for the 60mg QD cabozantinib dose levels. The company declared that the safety profile was accepted at both these dosages of Cabozantinib. DelveInsight believes that the best part of the study is that it included both the clear cell as well as non-clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC), which most of the trial designs had neglected. This combination is expected to provide more options in the patient suffering from non-clear cell RCC. Besides, one of the oncologists in the panel also analyzed that Cabozantinib/ Atezolizumab appears more active than Bevacizumab/ Atezolizumab, which is great news to hear.
About future work, the company is all set to evaluate atezolizumab on a similar line in another CONTACT-03 Phase III study, which is ongoing with or without atezolizumab in RCC previously treated with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Besides, Exelixis is also looking forward to evaluating the pending results from the triplet regimen of Cabozantinib/ Nivolumab/Ipilimumab in the COSMIC-313 trial.
“Following on our pivotal CheckMate -9ER data, we are thrilled to share these additional findings at the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 that speak to the potential of cabozantinib in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for the treatment of advanced kidney cancer,” said Gisela Schwab, M.D., President, Product Development and Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer, Exelixis
Fortunately, it has been a win-win situation for Exelixis in both its CheckMate -9ER as well as COSMIC-021 studies during the ESMO 2020, which creates a really good opportunity for these excellent IO-TKI combinations to add more to the already existing IO-TKI bucket list. The treatment landscape has already begun to evolve from mono TKIs to combinations IO-TKI or IO-IO therapies, where Exelixis is playing an important role.
