Bayer plans to advance program to the clinic in 2018

HOLON, Israel I April 17, 2018 I Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN), a leader in predictive discovery and development of first-in-class therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy, today announced that preclinical data presented by Bayer AG at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research held April 14-18, 2018, in Chicago, Illinois, highlights the efficacy of BAY 1905254 (formerly the CGEN-15001T program) in cancer immunotherapy. BAY 1905254 is a first-in-class therapeutic antibody candidate targeting ILDR2, a novel immune checkpoint discovered by Compugen. Bayer plans to advance the program into first-in-human trials in 2018.

The data was highlighted in a Bayer poster presentation titled “Discovery and preclinical characterization of BAY 1905254 a novel immune checkpoint inhibitor for cancer immunotherapy targeting the immunoglobulin-like domain containing receptor 2 (ILDR2).” The poster describes the characterization of BAY 1905254, a human/mouse cross-reactive antibody blocking the immunosuppressive activity of ILDR2. The data demonstrated that BAY 1905254 exhibits anti-tumor activity as a monotherapy in various mouse models, and was also shown to have additive/synergistic anti-tumor effects in combination with other cancer therapy approaches, indicating the possibility for multiple combination approaches for use in cancer immunotherapy.

Anat Cohen-Dayag, PhD, President and CEO of Compugen stated, “Bayer has been an outstanding partner for Compugen and we highly appreciate their continued commitment and investment in this promising program. This is an exciting time for Compugen as we become a clinical stage drug discovery and development company with two immuno-oncology programs advancing into the clinic this year – an internally developed program targeting PVRIG and an antibody targeting ILDR2 developed in collaboration with Bayer.”

Anat Cohen-Dayag, PhD, added, “ILDR2 is a completely new immune checkpoint that we discovered through our computational discovery capabilities. This immune checkpoint, together with the discovery of TIGIT and PVRIG, clearly demonstrate the power and value of Compugen’s predictive discovery capabilities in the discovery of new drug targets and pathways, enabling the development of first-in-class product opportunities.”

The abstract for the Bayer poster is available on the AACR website.

About Compugen

Compugen is a therapeutic discovery and development company utilizing its broadly applicable predictive discovery infrastructure to identify novel drug targets and develop first-in-class therapeutics in the field of cancer immunotherapy. The Company’s therapeutic pipeline consists of immuno-oncology programs against novel drug targets it has discovered, including T cell immune checkpoints and myeloid target programs. Compugen’s business model is to selectively enter into collaborations for its novel targets and related drug product candidates at various stages of research and development. The Company is headquartered in Israel, with R&D facilities in both Israel and South San Francisco, CA. Compugen’s shares are listed on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CGEN. For additional information, please visit Compugen’s corporate website at http://www.cgen.com.

SOURCE: Compugen