Compugen discovers new cancer antibody targets for partnering

Licensing opportunity

Compugen Ltd of Tel Aviv, Israel, announced the discovery of more than ten novel targets for antibody therapy for various types cancer and said it is interested in finding partners to collaborate in developing them.

The targets were initially predicted and selected in silico, using the company’s monoclonal antibody therapeutic targets platform, and have since been validated in experiments.

Anat Cohen-Dayag, Vice President of Diagnostic Biomarkers and Drug Targets, said, “We look forward to continuing use of this platform both in our own discovery activities and in collaboration with partners.”

Monoclonal antibody therapeutics is the fastest-growing segment of the pharmaceutical market. Typically they more faster from discovery to development, and are more likely to succeed in human clinical trials. “We see our [….] platform as an extremely valuable asset of the company and are very pleased by its continuing and growing success in identifying novel targets,” said Cohen-Dayag.

The new targets include ones for ovarian, lung and colon cancer, multiple myeloma, acute and chronic leukaemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. All are membrane-bound and display differential RNA expression in various tumours versus healthy samples. In addition, a number of them are splice variant molecules, a class of molecules that it would be particularly difficult to find utilising traditional discovery methodologies.

Compugen aims to be a leader in the discovery and licensing of candidates to the drug and diagnostic industries under milestone and revenue sharing agreements.