Drug discovery system developer Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN; TASE:CGEN) reported today that Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq:TEVA; TASE:TEVA) has exercised its option to utilize the biomarkers, discovered by Compugen, for early detection of drug-induced kidney toxicity. This biomarker combination was discovered during collaboration between the two companies.
Compugen also announced its plans to commercially introduce the markers through licensing arrangements during the second half of this year.
Following the announcement Compugen's share rose 24.5% by early afternoon trading on the TASE to NIS 2.45. The share closed at $0.49 on Nasdaq yesterday, giving a market cap of $14 million.
Under the terms of the collaboration with Teva, initiated in 2007, Compugen conducted a discovery process utilizing its proprietary computational tools, discovery engines and nucleic acid testing platforms as well as data derived from biological samples collected by Teva in a preclinical study. The business terms for the collaboration provided Teva with the royalty-free right to use any discovered markers for internal research and development activities. Compugen retained the commercialization rights for licensing such markers to other companies, as well as rights for internal use.
Validation results demonstrate that the biomarker signature may enable a much earlier prediction of drug-induced kidney toxicity during pre-clinical trials in rats in comparison with traditional diagnostic methods such as histopathology or clinical chemistry. In addition, the biomarker combination successfully predicted the relative levels of toxicity of the compounds that were tested.
Current tools for diagnosis of kidney function involve blood tests, such as blood urea nitrogen and serum levels, which show significant results only after substantial kidney injury has occurred. The pharmaceutical industry spends considerable amounts of money, time and effort trying to detect toxic drug effects as early as possible in order to avoid the incorporation of such drug candidates into more expensive drug development stages. Since the kidney is one of the primary sites of drugs toxicity, early detection of kidney toxicity in the preclinical stage of drug development is an important unmet need.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 24, 2009
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2009