Relacorilant is an emerging cancer treatment designed to help chemotherapy work better for women with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. It belongs to a group of medicines called selective glucocorticoid receptor modulators, and it works by blocking a stress-response pathway inside cancer cells that can make them resistant to treatment.
For women whose ovarian cancer has stopped responding to platinum-based chemotherapy, treatment options have been limited for many years. The introduction of relacorilant offers a new approach based on understanding how cancer cells use stress hormones to protect themselves.
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Why Stress Hormones Matter in Ovarian Cancer
The body naturally produces a hormone called cortisol. In everyday life, this helps regulate stress. But in cancer cells, cortisol can send signals that make tumors grow faster and resist the effects of chemotherapy. This is especially true for taxane-based treatments such as nab-paclitaxel.
Relacorilant works by blocking cortisol’s ability to help cancer cells survive. When cortisol’s influence is removed, chemotherapy can work more effectively and destroy cancer cells more easily.
How Relacorilant Works
Relacorilant attaches to the glucocorticoid receptor — the part of the cell that normally responds to cortisol — and prevents the stress signal from activating. This reduces the cancer cell’s ability to repair itself or resist chemotherapy.
Unlike older medications that blocked similar pathways, relacorilant is more precise. It does not affect reproductive hormones, electrolyte balance, or cause adrenal problems, which makes it safer for long-term use.
The ROSELLA Trial: What We Know So Far
Relacorilant has recently been studied in a large Phase III clinical trial called ROSELLA, which looked at the combination of relacorilant plus the chemotherapy drug nab-paclitaxel in women with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
The early results showed promising improvements:
- Women receiving relacorilant with nab-paclitaxel lived longer without their cancer growing.
- More women experienced shrinkage of their tumors.
- The treatment appeared helpful even for women who had received many previous therapies.
These findings are significant because platinum-resistant ovarian cancer typically does not respond well to standard chemotherapy. A therapy that can restore sensitivity to treatment represents a meaningful step forward.
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What Side Effects Should Patients Expect?
Most side effects seen with relacorilant are due to the chemotherapy backbone rather than the relacorilant itself. The most common symptoms include fatigue, nausea, hair thinning, or changes in blood counts. Importantly, relacorilant does not cause the hormonal side effects associated with older drugs targeting similar pathways.
Doctors monitor patients closely, but overall, the treatment has been well tolerated, and many women are able to stay on therapy longer than expected.
What Makes Relacorilant Different From Other Treatments?
Relacorilant is not another chemotherapy drug. Instead, it helps chemotherapy work better by making cancer cells more vulnerable. This approach—focusing on the stress-response biology inside the tumor—is a new direction in ovarian cancer treatment.
For women with platinum-resistant disease, this represents a hopeful therapeutic advance at a time when new options are greatly needed.
What’s Next for Relacorilant?
Researchers continue to study relacorilant in ovarian cancer and other cancers where glucocorticoid signaling may help tumors grow. The full results of the ROSELLA trial will guide future decisions, but many experts believe relacorilant could soon become part of the standard treatment approach for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
For now, relacorilant offers renewed hope, with the potential for longer control of the disease and a better response to chemotherapy.
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Written by Armen Gevorgyan, MD