Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation to Fund Further Therapeutic Evaluation Studies for Compugen-Discovered Drug Candidate
12 Octubre 2011 - 7:00AM
Business Wire
Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN) and the Pulmonary Fibrosis
Foundation announced today that the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation
will provide a grant to scientists at the University of Pittsburgh
Dorothy P. and Richard P. Simmons Center for Interstitial Lung
Disease to independently evaluate the therapeutic potential of
CGEN-25009 for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
(IPF), a devastating disease with no current effective treatment
and which is estimated to affect more than five million people
worldwide.
CGEN-25009, a novel peptide agonist of the relaxin receptor, was
discovered during the validation stage of Compugen’s GPCR Peptide
Ligand Discovery Platform. As already announced by Compugen,
studies conducted by Professor Daniele Bani, a world expert in the
field of relaxin and fibrotic diseases from the University of
Florence (Italy), previously demonstrated the therapeutic effect of
CGEN-25009, leading to robust reduction of the fibrotic tissue in
the lungs of mice induced with pulmonary fibrosis. The results of
Professor Bani's studies conducted with CGEN-25009 were recently
published in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental
Therapeutics.
Substantial worldwide research efforts have recently
demonstrated that the natural peptide hormone relaxin, in addition
to its historical role as the “pregnancy hormone,” is
multi-functional and affects a range of tissues. Known to activate
the LGR7(RXFP1) G protein-coupled receptor, the diverse and vital
roles of relaxin include protective cardiovascular and
anti-fibrotic activity, and roles in reproductive health, wound
healing, fertility and ageing.
“Our experiments are designed to further establish the
anti-fibrotic properties of CGEN-25009 in multiple animal models of
fibrosis, to elucidate the mechanism of CGEN-25009's anti-fibrotic
effects, and to prioritize potential biomarkers for the study of
CGEN-25009 in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis,” said
study leader Dr. Daniel Kass, Assistant Director for Novel
Therapeutics and Translational Research at the Simmons Center.
“It is exciting that patient advocacy groups such as the
Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation are spearheading the effort to
enhance collaborations between industry and academia in finding the
cure for IPF,” said co-investigator and Simmons Center director Dr.
Naftali Kaminski, Professor of Medicine, Pathology, Human Genetics
and Computational Biology. “This effort could generate significant
insights that will potentially change our understanding and
management of lung fibrosis.”
Dr. Dan Rose, President and Chief Executive Officer of the
Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, added, “Our Foundation is very
excited to be able to fund these important next steps in the
therapeutic evaluation of this very promising discovery. We hope
that these efforts will lead to a follow-up collaborative
development program and ultimately to an effective treatment for
this devastating disease.”
“Compugen is very enthusiastic regarding this collaboration
designed to further evaluate CGEN-25009, an attractive product
candidate with potential use not only in fibrosis, a key unmet
medical need, but also in other clinical indications, such as labor
complications, infertility and heart failure,” said Dr. Anat
Cohen-Dayag, Compugen’s president and CEO. “As previously
disclosed, Compugen is focusing its discovery and development
efforts towards addressing unmet medical needs in the fields of
oncology and immunology through the use of novel protein and
antibody therapeutics. However, our underlying predictive discovery
capabilities are broadly applicable and as part of the development
and validation activities associated with establishing these
capabilities, a number of very promising discoveries were made in
other areas of medical need, both therapeutic and diagnostic.
Therefore, although our primary business development efforts are
directed towards our oncology and immunology Pipeline Program and
'discovery on demand' activities, we are now in various discussions
for arrangements with other organizations to advance certain of
these earlier discoveries, including a number of promising novel
peptides, largely without the need for further Compugen financial
resources, such as the collaboration being announced today.”
About Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive disease
characterized by scarring of the lung parenchyma leading to
severely compromised gas exchange and ultimately to respiratory
failure. Despite a significantly improved understanding of the
molecular and cellular mechanisms of this disease, the prognosis is
still poor, with a median survival of 3 years from the onset of
symptoms. There is no known effective treatment, other than, in
certain cases, lung transplantation. IPF is estimated to affect
more than five million people worldwide.
About the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation
The mission of the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF) is to
help find a cure for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), advocate
for the pulmonary fibrosis community both locally and in
Washington, D.C., promote disease awareness, and provide a
compassionate environment for patients and their families. Its
agenda includes:
- substantially increasing funding for
IPF research and assisting in creating partnerships between the
academic research community and the biotech industry to drive new
treatments;
- fostering collaboration in the clinical
community to share information and ideas, starting with the
creation of an annual “IPF Summit” beginning in 2011, to improve
channels of communication between researchers;
- sponsoring a series of web-based
educational seminars (“webinars”) to bring the latest information
and research to patients and families more efficiently;
- establishing a National Affiliate
Program to allow the PFF to reach new communities, grow its patient
outreach capabilities, and expand its fundraising, advocacy, and
disease awareness efforts;
- strongly advocating for the IPF
community both locally and nationally;
- aggressively pursuing an increase in
public awareness through a series of public service announcements,
social networking, and traditional media exposure.
About Compugen
Compugen is a leading therapeutic product candidate discovery
company, currently focused on biologics-based therapy to address
important unmet needs in the fields of immunology and oncology,
either for Compugen or its partners. Unlike traditional high
throughput trial and error experimental based drug candidate
discovery, Compugen’s discovery efforts are based on systematic and
continuously improving in silico (by computer) product candidate
prediction and selection followed by experimental validation, with
selected product candidates being advanced in its Pipeline Program
to the pre-IND stage. Compugen’s in silico predictive models
utilize a broad and continuously growing infrastructure of
proprietary scientific understandings and predictive platforms,
algorithms, machine learning systems and other computational
biology capabilities. The Company’s business model primarily
involves collaborations covering the further development and
commercialization of Compugen-discovered product candidates and
various forms of “discovery on demand” arrangements, in both cases
providing Compugen with potential milestone payments and royalties
on product sales or other forms of revenue sharing. In 2002,
Compugen established an affiliate, Evogene Ltd. (www.evogene.com)
(TASE: EVGN.TA), to utilize certain of the Company's in silico
predictive discovery capabilities in agricultural biotechnology.
For additional information, please visit Compugen's corporate
website at www.cgen.com.
This press release may contain “forward-looking statements”
within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. These statements include words such as “may,” “expects,”
“anticipates,” “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 are: changes in relationships with collaborators; the
impact of competitive products and technological changes; risks
relating to the development of new products; and the ability to
implement technological improvements. These and other factors are
identified and more fully explained under the heading “Risk
Factors” in Compugen's annual reports filed with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.
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