Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has announced today that preliminary data from an interim analysis of its ongoing Phase III clinical trial of investigational temsirolimus (CCI-779) for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) showed that single-agent therapy with temsirolimus significantly increased overall survival as a first-line treatment of patients with advanced disease and poor risk features compared to interferon-alpha, a treatment for advanced RCC.

In the trial, patients who were treated with temsirolimus alone experienced a 3.6-month, or 49 percent, increase in median overall survival time compared with patients treated with interferon-alpha alone (10.9 months vs. 7.3 months). These data were presented during a late-breaking plenary session at the 42nd annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Atlanta, Ga.