On March 11, 2020 IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDYA), an oncology-focused precision medicine company committed to the discovery and development of targeted therapeutics to treat cancer, reported an expanded research collaboration with Cancer Research UK and the University of Manchester, UK, to develop small molecule inhibitors of Poly(ADP-ribose) glycohydrolase (PARG) (Press release, Ideaya Biosciences, MAR 11, 2020, View Source [SID1234555417]). PARG is a cellular enzyme that hydrolyzes Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), a protein function required for DNA repair.
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Since initiating the Cancer Research UK partnership in 2017, IDEAYA has developed a selective and cell potent PARG small molecule series, that demonstrates robust on-target in vivo pharmacodynamic modulation. In 2019, Dr. Stephen Taylor and Pilay et. al., published a paper in Cancer Cell, entitled "DNA Replication Vulnerabilities Render Ovarian Cancer Cells Sensitive to Poly(ADP-Ribose) Glycohydrolase Inhibitors", which provides a potentially differentiated and complementary treatment approach to PARP inhibitors.
The expanded research collaboration will evaluate IDEAYA’s PARG inhibitors in vitro in multiple ovarian cancer cell lines and in vivo in ovarian cancer xenograft models. Dr. Stephen Taylor, B.Sc., Ph.D., Leech Professor of Pharmacology, University of Manchester, the principal investigator at University of Manchester, will lead the in vitro investigations. Dr. Caroline Springer, Ph.D., Director, Drug Discovery Unit, Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, the principal investigator at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, will lead the in vivo studies.
"We are excited to expand our partnership with IDEAYA to evaluate key biological hypotheses based on DNA replication vulnerabilities to predict sensitivity of PARG inhibitors in ovarian cancer. A large percentage of ovarian cancer patients still do not respond to PARP inhibitors, and there is an important need to advance other synthetic lethality DDR-based targets," said Dr. Stephen Taylor, B.Sc., Ph.D. "This collaborative research builds on our existing relationship with IDEAYA, and could potentially inform effective patient selection strategies of PARG inhibitors," added Dr. Caroline Springer, Ph.D.
"Cancer Research UK has made important research contributions to the DNA Damage Repair and PARP-BRCA synthetic lethality field, and we are delighted to expand our partnership with this leading cancer research institute to advance our potential first-in-class PARG inhibitor program," said Yujiro S. Hata, Chief Executive Officer and President, IDEAYA Biosciences.