NEW YORK – Zentalis Pharmaceuticals on Thursday said it was using Tempus' patient-derived organoid modeling platform to garner more mechanistic insights into the cancer drugs in its pipeline, starting with its investigational WEE1 inhibitor.
Using Tempus' platform, New York-based Zentalis will be able to grow and mimic the genetic and functional features of tumors, and specifically explore the sensitivity of its drugs against the DNA repair mechanisms of cancer cells. Zentalis will start with the WEE1 inhibitor ZN-c3 and use the platform to validate its ability to inhibit DNA repair pathways in genetically defined cancers. The company will also use the platform to study other drug targets and pathways and explore the activity of drugs across its development pipeline.
"We believe that our library of patient-derived organoids is well positioned to better identify patient populations that could benefit from Zentalis' WEE1 inhibitor, ZN-c3," Marc Yoskowitz, chief strategy officer at Tempus, said in a statement. "We look forward to applying the full potential of our platform to address the ever-increasing unmet needs of cancer patients."