Compugen Reports Results Further Confirming CGEN-15049 as 'Promising' Target Candidate for Cancer Immunotherapy

Compugen Ltd. CGEN today disclosed results from recent studies further confirming CGEN-15049 as a promising target candidate for cancer immunotherapy. These recent studies evaluated the function of this Compugen-discovered immune checkpoint candidate on immune cells derived from the tumor environment of melanoma patients. Based on these and earlier experimental results, CGEN-15049, which is expressed on various cancers including lung, ovarian, breast, colorectal, gastric, prostate and liver, is further advancing in the Company's Pipeline Program, with ongoing therapeutic antibody development activities against this novel target. In the recent experimental studies now being disclosed, CGEN-15049 continued to demonstrate the potential to inhibit the immune system's ability to attack cancer cells. More specifically, these studies have shown that overexpression of CGEN-15049 in human melanoma cells inhibits the activity of tumor antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) derived from melanoma patients' tumors. These effector immune cells, also referred to as tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), infiltrate tumors and are known to play a major role in anti-tumor immune responses. The results suggest that CGEN-15049 can inhibit the activity of the immune system in the tumor microenvironment through its impact on TILs, which would otherwise fight the tumor. In addition, new initial experimental data from a mouse tumor model further support expression of CGEN-15049 on suppressive immune cells within the tumor microenvironment. Together with the previously reported expression on a wide variety of cancers, and combined with the immunomodulatory activity of CGEN-15049 on immune cells involved in tumor progression, these data support a potential role for this drug target in suppressing anti-tumor immune responses. Therefore, blockade of CGEN-15049 activity by monoclonal antibody therapy is anticipated to result in the stimulation of an anti-tumor immune response, leading to tumor elimination. Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag, Compugen's President and CEO, stated, "As we move forward with the discovery of therapeutic antibodies targeting our novel immune checkpoint candidates, we continue to be very pleased by the encouraging results we are achieving as we further evaluate the eleven novel B7/CD28-like immune checkpoints that resulted from our first focused use of Compugen's predictive discovery platform. These results not only demonstrate the high accuracy of our unique discovery capability, but also demonstrate the diversity of our Pipeline Program candidates and their potential to inhibit the immune system's response against cancer through complementary mechanisms. These attributes, such as those now being reported for CGEN-15049, could offer major benefits given the breadth of the possible therapeutic applications for our drug targets. Oncology drugs based on these novel immune checkpoints could potentially have significant medical and commercial value."