Lymphoma Treatment - Epizyme Announces New Breakthrough

Epizyme, Inc., a company at the forefront of research and development in the field of cancer therapies that work against epigenetic targets, recently announced a breakthrough in their research, which will pave the way for therapies that will be able to safely and effectively treat certain types of human lymphomas. The research that led to this breakthrough focused on an epigenetic enzyme known as EZH2, which is a histone methyltransferase (HMT) enzyme that plays a key role in the regulation of the activity of a series of genes that are associated with cancer.

Dr. Robert A. Copeland, EVP of R&D and CSO at Epizyme, Inc., issued the following statement regarding this recent breakthrough: “We believe this is the first example of a human disease that is reliant on the combined catalytic activity of both normal and disease-associated mutant enzymes. By targeting HMTs with clear genetic disease associations, such as EZH2, Epizyme takes a hypothesis-driven approach to development of personalized therapeutics for specific patient populations with high unmet needs. Our product platform enables the creation of novel, potent and selective small molecule HMT inhibitors.”

Details of this groundbreaking research are expected to be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.