Compugen raises $20M through sale of 4.1M ordinary shares

Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN) today announced it has raised gross proceeds of $20 million, completing in full its previously announced Controlled Equity Offering facility. Under this facility, a total of approximately 4.1 million ordinary shares were sold at a weighted average price of approximately $4.91 per share. These shares were sold in the open market at prevailing prices during the period November 13, 2009 to December 29, 2009. After sales commissions and estimated offering expenses, Compugen realized net proceeds of approximately $19 million. The net proceeds are intended for general corporate purposes.

Compugen's Controlled Equity Offering facility, which was established with Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. on October 30, 2009, covered the sale from time to time of ordinary shares in the maximum total amount of $20 million under the Company's effective shelf registration filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Form F-3 (File No. 333-161241).

Ms. Dikla Czaczkes Axselbrad, chief financial officer at Compugen, stated, “Including the net proceeds from this offering, we expect to have cash resources at year-end 2009 of approximately $23 million, not including the approximately $4 million market value of our holdings of Evogene Ltd. ordinary shares. We anticipate maximum gross cash usage of $8.5 million for 2010, which would be reduced by any revenues or other cash sources, including government or other grants, in calculating 2010 net cash usage. In view of the fact that we anticipate that our major source of revenues in the short-term will likely be research revenues, licensing fees and milestones, we do not plan on providing guidance for revenues during 2010. However, as previously stated, a short-term financial target is to achieve cash flow breakeven by year-end 2011, based largely on research revenues under milestone and revenue sharing collaboration agreements. Achieving this target is of course subject to success in entering into additional collaborations during 2010, which is now a primary focus of our business development efforts. Longer term, we expect that the major components of our revenues will be milestones, royalties and other revenue sharing amounts.”