Repare identifies new BRCA synthetic lethal relationship; plus Immune-Onc, Acuitas and more

Using a genome-scale CRISPR-based screen, Repare Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:RPTX) and academic colleagues identified the KIAA1524-TOPBP1 axis as a synthetic lethal target for BRCA1- and BRCA2-mutated cancers. As proof of concept in the Nature Cancer paper, the team showed a small molecule that disrupts the KIAA1524-TOPBP1 interaction inhibited tumor growth in mice with BRCA2-knockout colorectal tumors.

Repare is among a group of companies hoping to build on the success of PARP inhibitors in BRCA-mutant cancers by targeting other synthetically lethal target-biomarker pairs...