TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ:
CGEN) announced today the signing of a collaboration and license
agreement for the research, development, and commercialization of
antibody-based therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy against two novel
Compugen discovered immune checkpoint regulators. Under the terms of the
agreement, Bayer HealthCare (Bayer) and Compugen will jointly pursue a
preclinical research program. Subsequently, Bayer will have full control
over further development and have worldwide commercialization rights for
potential cancer therapeutics.
Under the agreement Compugen will receive an upfront payment of USD 10
million, and is eligible to receive over USD 500 million in potential
milestone payments for both programs, not including milestone payments
of up to USD 30 million associated with preclinical activities.
Additionally, Compugen is also eligible to receive mid to high single
digit royalties on global net sales of any resulting products under the
collaboration.
“Bayer is committed to translating the science of cancer research into
effective therapies helping people affected by cancer live longer and
improve their quality of life,” said Prof. Andreas Busch, Member of the
Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee and Head of Global Drug Discovery.
“Antibody-based immunotherapies are promising approaches in oncology
which can stimulate the body’s own immune cells to fight cancer cells.
Immunotherapy is one of our focus areas in oncology research. We are
looking forward to expanding our portfolio in this area through
partnering with Compugen.”
Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., President and CEO of Compugen, added, “We are
very excited to initiate this collaboration with Bayer, a leading global
life science company with a broadening oncology franchise, for the
development of antibody-based cancer immunotherapies against these two
promising novel immune checkpoint targets. In addition, we believe that
the prediction and validation of these two targets, through the use of
our broadly applicable predictive discovery infrastructure, provides
additional validation for our long-term commitment to establishing this
unique capability".
The immunotherapy approach aims at combatting cancer by stimulating the
body's own immune cells. The tumor and its environment suppress the
ability of cancer patients to develop an effective anti-tumor immune
response and in this way protect both tumor growth and survival.
Compugen has discovered two novel immune checkpoint regulators that
potentially play a key role in immunosuppression. Researchers at
Compugen are developing specific therapeutic antibodies that are geared
to block the immunosuppressive function of these targets and to
reactivate the patient's anti-tumor immune response in order to fight
cancer.
About Cancer Immunotherapy
Latest cancer immunotherapies have demonstrated impressive clinical
benefit, even for end-stage patients with difficult-to-treat tumors such
as metastatic melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer. Unlike
conventional cancer therapies, which act by directly targeting the
cancer cells, resulting often in only transient clinical responses as
cancer cells become resistant, clinical responses to cancer
immunotherapy tend to be durable, sometimes resulting in dramatic long
term survival and absence of resistance or recurrences.
About Compugen
Compugen is a leading drug discovery company focused on therapeutic
proteins and monoclonal antibodies to address important unmet needs in
the fields of immunology and oncology. The Company utilizes a broad and
continuously growing integrated infrastructure of proprietary scientific
understandings and predictive platforms, algorithms, machine learning
systems and other computational biology capabilities for the in
silico (by computer) prediction and selection of product candidates,
which are then advanced in its Pipeline Program. The Company's business
model includes collaborations covering the further development and
commercialization of selected product candidates from its Pipeline
Program and various forms of research and discovery agreements, in both
cases providing Compugen with potential milestone payments and royalties
on product sales or other forms of revenue sharing. In 2012, Compugen
established operations in California for the development of oncology and
immunology monoclonal antibody therapeutic candidates against Compugen
drug targets. For additional information, please visit Compugen's
corporate website at www.cgen.com.
On August 2, 2013 Compugen filed Form-6K with its financial statements
for the six months ended June 30, 2013 and will host a public conference
call at 10:00 AM ET on Wednesday, August 7, 2013 to discuss these
results and any questions with respect to this press release. Further
information regarding the conference call is provided in a separate
press release issued today and on our website.
About Bayer HealthCare
The Bayer Group is a global enterprise with core competencies in the
fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials. Bayer
HealthCare, a subgroup of Bayer AG with annual sales of EUR 18.6 billion
(2012), is one of the world’s leading, innovative companies in the
healthcare and medical products industry and is based in Leverkusen,
Germany. The company combines the global activities of the Animal
Health, Consumer Care, Medical Care and Pharmaceuticals divisions. Bayer
HealthCare’s aim is to discover, develop, manufacture and market
products that will improve human and animal health worldwide. Bayer
HealthCare has a global workforce of 55,300 employees (Dec 31, 2012) and
is represented in more than 100 countries. More information at www.healthcare.bayer.com.
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These
statements, which include statements related to the potential
development and commercialization of antibody-based cancer
immunotherapies against the Compugen-discovered immune checkpoint
targets, potential milestone and royalty payments, and that the
collaboration validates Compugen’s predictive discovery infrastructure,
include words such as “may,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “potential,”
“believes,” and “intends,” and describe opinions about future events.
These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and
uncertainties that may cause the actual results, performance or
achievements of Compugen to be materially different from any future
results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements. Some of these risks and other factors are
discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of Compugen’s Annual Report on
Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2012 as filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, any forward-looking
statements represent Compugen’s views only as of the date of this
release and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of
any subsequent date. Compugen does not assume any obligation to update
any forward-looking statements unless required by law.