The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the triple-therapy combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus cobimetinib (Cotellic) and vemurafenib (Zelboraf) for the treatment of BRAF V600 mutation-positive advanced melanoma, according to a press statement from Genentech, which owns all three drugs.
This is the first melanoma indication for the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab; the other two drugs, cobimetinib and vemurafenib, are a MEK- plus BRAF-inhibitor combination previously approved for BRAF-mutated melanoma.
The new approval is based on safety and efficacy results from the randomized, phase 3 IMspire150 study from patients with previously untreated BRAF V600 mutation-positive metastatic or unresectable locally advanced melanoma.
Progression-free survival (PFS), the primary endpoint, was improved by 4.5 months with the triple therapy compared to the doublet.
The addition of atezolizumab to cobimetinib and vemurafenib led to a longer median PFS of 15.1 months, compared to 10.6 months with placebo plus cobimetinib and vemurafenib (hazard ratio, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.63 – 0.97; P = .025).
The most common adverse reactions (rate ≥ 20%) in patients who received the triple combination were rash (75%), musculoskeletal pain (62%), fatigue (51%), hepatotoxicity (50%), pyrexia (49%), nausea (30%), pruritus (26%), edema (26%), stomatitis (23%), hypothyroidism (22%), and photosensitivity reaction (21%).
The review was conducted under Project Orbis, an initiative of the FDA Oncology Center of Excellence that facilitates concurrent submission and review of oncology products among international partners.
This article first appeared on Medscape.com.