The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) has approved the use of the combination of cabozantinib (a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor) plus nivolumab (an immunotherapy) for use by NHS Scotland for the treatment of untreated people with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

The approval was based on the results from a phase 3 study, which showed the risk of death for people with advanced RCC patients was reduced by 34% with the combination compared to standard treatment with sunitinib. Also the time to when the treatment stopped working and the cancer started growing again (progression-free survival) was doubled from 8.3 months with sunitinib to 17 months with the cabozantinib plus nivolumab combination.

Read the press release in Pharma Times here