Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ:CGEN) announced today that they have signed a collaboration agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Germany (“Bayer”) covering the further evaluation of a Compugen discovered tumor target and its splice variants. Following an initial six month joint research stage, the agreement provides Bayer with an option for an exclusive worldwide royalty bearing license for development of monoclonal antibodies and other therapeutic agents addressing these novel target molecules. The existence of the target and its splice variants was initially predicted in silico by Compugen through the use of its Monoclonal Antibody (mAb) Targets Discovery Platform; the predicted molecules were then validated experimentally.
The newly discovered tumor target and its splice variants are previously unknown splice variants of a known cancer target for which therapeutic agents are currently in pre-clinical development by other organizations. Like the known cancer target, this protein molecule and its variants are all trans-membrane proteins. However, each of the Compugen molecules has a unique sequence at the extracellular domain of the protein that enables the development of monoclonal antibodies specific to each of the respective splice variants. Therefore each splice variant could represent a novel target for monoclonal antibody therapy.
A common feature of Compugen’s discovery platforms, such as the mAb Targets Discovery Platform used in this discovery, is the ability to predict and select multiple potential product candidates for each indication of interest. The availability of multiple candidates, in this case a number of different splice variants, should increase the probability of success for the overall program.