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news.Compugen, a drug and diagnostic product candidate discovery company, has signed a collaboration agreement with Merck KGaA, acting for its pharmaceutical division Merck Serono, covering CGEN-855, a Compugen-discovered novel peptide targeting the FPRL1 G-protein coupled receptor.
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The agreement covers additional research to be conducted by Compugen and provides Merck Serono with an option to exclusively license the novel peptide for worldwide development and commercialization.
According to Compugen, the novel peptide has demonstrated, in recently completed initial in vitro and in vivo studies, the potential to treat, among other indications, inflammatory diseases.
In addition to the GPCR ligands platform, Compugen now has two other platforms for predicting and selecting product candidates in this field: the DAC peptide blockers discovery platform and the viral peptides discovery platform. To date, a number of interesting product candidates have been discovered and validated experimentally through the use of each of these platforms, the company said.
These product candidates, including the CGEN-855 peptide now moving forward in collaboration with Merck Serono, target therapeutic areas with high clinical and commercial importance, such as cancer, inflammation, metabolism and cardiovascular diseases.
Alex Kotzer, CEO of Compugen, said: We are very proud to add Merck Serono to the growing list of pharma companies with which we have collaborations for the advancement of our product candidates. We are also pleased to be the first Israeli biotech company that has signed an agreement with Merck Serono under the global enterprise partnership program of the chief scientist of Israel.