"Targeted drugs"

Many lung cancer patients will be detected by genetic testing to carry an EGFR mutation, and these patients can often control their tumours with EGFR-targeted drugs. Although targeted drugs are effective and have fewer side effects than chemotherapy, resistance to them inevitably occurs, after which they no longer work.

The collaboration aims to improve the efficiency of the drug discovery pipeline by leveraging industry-leading capabilities to identify genetic variants that cause human disease.

Nectin-4 is an important target that has been shown to be available as a treatment for locally advanced and advanced bladder cancer. Based on this, Padcev (enfortumab-vedotin-ejfv), the first ADC drug (antibody-coupled drug) for uroepithelial carcinoma, has also received accelerated FDA approval for the treatment of locally advanced or advanced bladder cancer in patients who have previously received immune checkpoint inhibitors (PD-L1, PD-1) and platinum-containing chemotherapy before surgery (neoadjuvant therapy) or after surgery (adjuvant therapy). Adult patients with advanced or late-stage uroepithelial carcinoma (a common type of bladder cancer).

DZD1516 is a reversible, selective HER2-targeting agent with full blood-brain barrier penetration. It has demonstrated good therapeutic response in phase I studies in patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, including breast cancer patients with central nervous system metastases.