Compugen shares soared over 60% today following news of a drug discovery deal with Pfizer.
Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN; TASE: CGEN) has signed a collaboration agreement with Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE; LSE: PFZ) for the predictive discovery by Compugen of therapeutic peptide product candidates for three drug targets of interest to Pfizer. Pfizer will fund the discovery process.
The discovery process will take a few months, after which Compugen will synthesize the predicted molecules and deliver them to Pfizer. Following an evaluation period, Pfizer will have the right to exercise options for worldwide exclusive milestone and royalty bearing licenses to develop and commercialize the selected product candidates.
In October, Compugen signed a collaboration agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma AG, which covered the further evaluation of a Compugen discovered tumor target. Bayer received an option for an exclusive worldwide royalty-bearing license for the development of monoclonal antibodies and other therapeutic agents addressing the molecules.
Compugen president and co-CEO Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag said, “Although use of our various discovery platforms is now providing us with a growing inventory of novel drug and target candidates for further development and licensing, the most unique aspect of our capabilities is the ability to systematically and within a short timeframe provide, what we call 'discovery on demand' product candidates for selected areas of interest to our partners."
Cohen-Dayag added that, following the cooperation agreement with Pfizer, company hopes to reach similar deals with other pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies.
In recent years, Compugen has designed, developed, validated and disclosed ten product candidate discovery platforms directed at various areas of drug and diagnostic discovery
Compugen's share closed at $2.84 on Nasdaq yesterday.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 23, 2009
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