AstraZeneca eyes a safer PARP inhibitor, with nearly 50% response in advanced breast cancer patients: #AACR24

SAN DIEGO — As­traZeneca’s ex­per­i­men­tal PARP1 in­hibitor helped shrink tu­mors in near­ly half of peo­ple with breast can­cers har­bor­ing cer­tain DNA re­pair de­fects in an ear­ly-stage study.

The drug, saru­parib, is the most ad­vanced can­di­date in a new class of com­pounds that takes aim at the DNA re­pair en­zyme.

While there are sev­er­al PARP in­hibitors al­ready on the mar­ket, in­clud­ing As­traZeneca and Mer­ck’s Lyn­parza and Pfiz­er’s Talzen­na, they tar­get two sim­i­lar en­zymes, PARP1 and PARP2, and cause side ef­fects like nau­sea, ane­mia and low white blood cell counts.

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