First Dosing in Clinical Trial to Trigger $10M Payment for Compugen; Share Price Skyrockets 170%

Cancer immunotherapy company, Compugen Ltd (Nasdaq: CGEN) will be eligible to receive a milestone payment of $10 million from AstraZeneca (Nasdaq: AZN) when the first patient is dosed in AstraZeneca’s ARTEMIDE-Bil01 trial with rilvegostomig. The ARTEMIDE-Bil01 trial is expected to recruit about 750 subjects in more than 20 countries with biliary tract cancer. The company’s share price rose more than 170% following the news.

Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., President, and Chief Executive Officer of Compugen, commented, “I am delighted to see the advancement of rilvegostomig into Phase 3 by AstraZeneca, a global leader in oncology. I believe that the progress of the rilvegostomig clinical program in this Phase 3 trial along with the Phase 1 and 2 trials in additional indications, demonstrates the commitment to explore the potential of this bispecific antibody, where the TIGIT component is derived from our anti-TIGIT antibody COM902.”

Highlights

In 2018, Compugen and AstraZeneca entered into an agreement by which Compugen provided an exclusive license to AstraZeneca to use Compugen’s monospecific antibodies that bind to TIGIT.

Under the agreement, AstraZeneca is responsible for all research, development, and commercial activities, and has the right to create multiple products under this license.

Compugen has already received a $10 million upfront payment, and an additional $15.5 million in milestone payments to date, all out of up to an aggregate milestone amount of $200 million that the Company is eligible to receive in development, regulatory and commercial milestones for the first product, as well as tiered royalties on future product sales.

Rilvegostomig is a PD-1/TIGIT bispecific antibody where the TIGIT component is derived from Compugen’s clinical-stage anti-TIGIT antibody, COM902.

About Compugen

Compugen is a clinical-stage therapeutic discovery and development company utilizing its broadly applicable predictive computational discovery capabilities to identify new drug targets and biological pathways for developing cancer immunotherapies. Compugen has developed two proprietary product candidates: COM701, a potential first-in-class anti-PVRIG antibody and COM902, a potential best-in-class antibody targeting TIGIT for the treatment of solid tumors. Compugen also has a clinical stage partnered program, rilvegostomig (previously AZD2936), a PD-1/TIGIT bispecific antibody where the TIGIT component is derived from Compugen’s clinical stage anti-TIGIT antibody, COM902, in Phase 3 development by AstraZeneca through a license agreement for the development of bispecific and multispecific antibodies. In addition, the Company’s therapeutic pipeline of early-stage immuno-oncology programs consists of programs aiming to address various mechanisms of immune resistance, of which the most advanced program, COM503, is in IND enabling studies. COM503 is a potential first-in-class, high affinity antibody which blocks the interaction between IL-18 binding protein and IL-18, thereby freeing natural IL-18 in the tumor microenvironment to inhibit cancer growth. Compugen is headquartered in Israel, with offices in San Francisco, CA. Compugen’s shares are listed on Nasdaq and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CGEN.