Genentech’s PD-L1 inhibitor Tecentriq continues to show off its versatility. Monday, the Roche subsidiary announced a combination of Tecentriq and Avastin (bevacizumab) was significantly beneficial to patients with advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) who have not received prior systemic active or experimental therapy.

Genentech said the Phase III combination therapy improved progression-free survival by 26 percent in mRCC patients whose disease expressed a PD-L1 protein. Genentech tested the Tecentriq/ Avastin combination in comparison to sunitinib, a standard care of treatment. Additionally, Genentech said the combination treatment “markedly delayed the time” to a worsening of mRCC symptoms that can inhibit day-to-day life in comparison to sunitinib. Genentech said the median time to deterioration was 11.3 months for the combination treatment in comparison to 4.3 months for sunitinib.

Genentech’s late-stage IMmotion151 study was testing the combination as a first-line treatment for those mRCC patients. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 63,300 people will be diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2018. Of those patients, about 90 percent will be diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma.

The Phase III trial of 915 patients met its co-primary endpoint of progression-free survival. Patients who received the combination treatment had a 26-percent reduced risk of disease worsening or death (PFS) compared to people treated with sunitinib. The trial-arm patients saw about 11.2 months of progression-free survival compared to 7.7 months in the control arm, Genentech said.

The other co-primary endpoint of overall survival has not yet been reached. Genentech said the data has been encouraging but said they are still immature.

Tecentriq and Avastin are showing themselves to be a strong combination. Genentech believes Avastin, an intravenous biologic antibody that binds to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), can enhance Tecentriq’s ability to restore anti-cancer immunity. The combination is believed to promote T-cell tumor infiltration and enabling priming and activation of T-cell responses against tumor antigens.

Sandra Horning, Genentech’s chief medical officer and head of global product development, pointed to the latest Phase III data as the “second positive Phase III study” that includes the combination of Tecentriq and Avastin as part of a treatment regimen. In December, Genentech announced the Tecentriq/ Avastin combination demonstrated a 38 percent reduction of worsening or death in patients with previously untreated, advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

“We are encouraged that initial treatment with Tecentriq and Avastin significantly reduced the risk of disease worsening or death in people with advanced kidney cancer, while also providing more time before disease symptoms interfered with day-to-day life compared with sunitinib, a current standard of care. We look forward to discussing these results with regulatory authorities worldwide,” Horning said in a statement.

If the combination is approved, that could help Roche and Genentech catch companies like Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb who are entrenched in the PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor category.