Benzinga | Aug 19, 2021 07:09AM EDT

Compugen Announces Bispecific Antibody Derived From COM902 To Enter Clinical Development

Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ:CGEN), a leader in predictive discovery and development of first-in-class therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy, today announced that a bispecific antibody of AstraZeneca derived from COM902, Compugen's high affinity anti-TIGIT antibody, will advance into clinical development. AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) plans to initiate a Phase 1/2 study evaluating AZD2936, a TIGIT/PD-1 bispecific antibody, in patients with advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer.

COM902 was licensed to AstraZeneca in 2018 exclusively for the development of bispecific and multi-specific antibody products, with AstraZeneca responsible for all research, development, and commercial activities. Compugen retains all other rights to the program with exception to those licensed to AstraZeneca.

"The advancement into the clinic of this bispecific derived from COM902 provides additional support for COM902's therapeutic potential by a global leader in the development of antibody-based oncology therapeutics," said Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Compugen. "We believe COM902's properties, including its high affinity and superior binding compared to other anti-TIGITs tested in a preclinical setting, were key attributes that contributed to the decision to obtain rights for the development of bispecific products and further advancement of AZD2936 to the clinic. The exclusive license agreement with AstraZeneca allows us to broaden our product opportunities and specifically capitalize on bispecific products while maintaining ownership of COM902 for the development of various combination therapies in general, and DNAM-axis related specifically, including in combination with COM701 our first in class anti-PVRIG antibody. We are excited to disclose the identity of our program licensed to AstraZeneca and we look forward to reporting future milestone payments as they occur"