Zai Lab announces data published in journal ‘Cell’ on niraparib

Zai Lab announced that data published in the journal “Cell” demonstrate that neoadjuvant monotherapy with the poly polymerase inhibitor niraparib results in a high response rate and reshapes the tumor microenvironment, or TME, providing new targets for immunotherapy and combination regimens in patients with homologous recombination deficiency positive ovarian cancer. This Zai Lab-supported study revealed niraparib preferentially suppresses certain immune cells that support the growth of HRD-positive ovarian tumors and also showed that targeted clearance of infiltrating regulatory T cells using Zai Lab’s investigational CCR8 antibody, ZL-1218, significantly sensitized niraparib against HRD tumors, resulting in decreased tumor burden in pre-clinical models, the company stated. “Given the prevalence of HRD in cancer and its role in rendering tumors vulnerable to PARP inhibition, this study fills the knowledge gap regarding the impact of HRD and related therapies on the tumor microenvironment. By decoding the tumor-reactive T cells in the HRD-positive TME that are regulated by eTregs, these findings have profound implications for future oncology research and therapeutic development for HRD-positive ovarian cancer and other HRD-related cancers,” said Professor Qinglei Gao, Chief of Gynecologic Oncology Department, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology.