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news.Compugen disclosed at the JMP Securities Life Science Conference in NY, COM701 as the lead monoclonal antibody therapeutic candidate for the Company's CGEN-15029 target program.
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This antibody candidate is now undergoing preclinical development activities in preparation for advancement to clinical trials, with an anticipated IND filing next year. CGEN-15029 is one of multiple novel immune checkpoint targets discovered by the Company through the use of its unique in silico predictive discovery infrastructure.
COM701 was selected from among multiple candidate antibodies for CGEN-15029, which were generated through various antibody discovery technologies and screened at Compugen USA, Inc., the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary in South San Francisco. This effort resulted in a collection of high affinity antibodies with the ability to block CGEN-15029 from binding to its ligand, and which demonstrated activation of T cells in functional studies.
The selected hybridoma lead antibody demonstrated potent, reproducible enhancement of T cell activation, consistent with the desired mechanism of action of activating T cells in the tumor microenvironment to generate anti-tumor immune responses. COM701 was successfully humanized and has advanced into preclinical development.
Cell line development has been initiated for this antibody candidate, and the Company has entered into agreements for the manufacturing and respective analytics of the therapeutic antibody.
The CGEN-15029 target was predicted in silico and experimentally confirmed to be a receptor-like checkpoint protein expressed on immune cells, with restricted expression on T and NK immune cells, similar to PD-1.
Experimental validation systems established over the last two years have enabled Compugen to validate and advance multiple novel immuno-oncology targets, and have allowed Compugen’s scientists to show that this target is expressed in tumor-infiltrating T cells (TILs) in various solid and hematologic cancer types.
Over expression of CGEN-15029 was shown to decrease T cell activation, whereas inhibition of CGEN-15029 by knocking down its gene resulted in increased T cell activation, indicating that this novel target is indeed an immune checkpoint protein.
With its established infrastructure, the Company is pursuing a number of immuno-oncology target programs based on other Compugen-discovered targets in addition to CGEN-15029, and has two additional programs that are the subject of an ongoing pharma collaboration.
Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag, President and CEO of Compugen, explained, "Selection of COM701 as our lead clinical candidate marks a new phase for Compugen, where we not only discover novel targets for immuno-oncology, but are now positioned to advance our discoveries into preclinical and clinical development on our own. The rapid progress of the CGEN-15029 program, with extremely aggressive timelines from target discovery and validation to therapeutic antibody development, was made possible in large part by the identification of CGEN-15029’s binding partner and the expansion of the Company’s immuno-oncology R&D infrastructure.
"In parallel to the CGEN-15029 program, Compugen is using this infrastructure to pursue additional novel immuno-oncology programs and is now positioned to advance them. In addition to the information disclosed today, the Company intends to share further data with respect to the CGEN-15029 program and the status of its Pipeline Program in the coming months."