Results from the ENTRATA clinical trial to assess telaglenastat in combination with everolimus for patients with heavily pre-treated renal cell carcinoma were presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) conference in Barcelona over the weekend.

Telaglenastat is a type of biological therapy called a glutaminase inhibitor that blocks the glutaminase enzyme, which is essential for the conversion of the amino acid glutamine into glutamate. Conversion of glutamine into glutamate provides energy for kidney cell growth and survival. Blocking the glutaminase enzyme in kidney cancer tumours can stop the growth of kidney cancer cells.

In early clinical trials, telaglenastat plus everolimus has been shown to be well tolerated with encouraging clinical activity (92% disease control rate and median progression free survival of 5.8 months).

Results of the phase II ENTRATA study showed that in heavily pre-treated RCC patients, who had received around 3 prior treatments for their RCC, including immunotherapy, median progression free survival was 3.8 months for telaglenastat plus everolimus compared to 1.9 months for placebo plus everolimus. Overall survival data were not available. The combination was well tolerated.

Read more in UroToday here