Compugen Announces Collaboration and License Agreement with Bayer for Antibody-Based Cancer Immunotherapies
05 Agosto 2013 - 5:10AM
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.
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