On November 16, 2022 Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN), a clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy company and a pioneer in computational target discovery, reported that it expects to receive a milestone payment of $7.5 million from AstraZeneca, after AstraZeneca dosed the first patient in its ARTEMIDE Phase 2 study with AZD2936, a PD-1/TIGIT bispecific antibody derived from COM902, Compugen’s clinical-stage anti-TIGIT antibody (Press release, Compugen, NOV 16, 2022, View Source [SID1234624180]).
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"The advancement of AZD2936 into Phase 2 by AstraZeneca, a global leader in the development of oncology therapeutics, builds our confidence in the therapeutic potential of our anti-TIGIT antibody, COM902," said Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., President, and Chief Executive Officer of Compugen. "Like COM902, AZD2936 was engineered to reduce Fc effector functionality, with the potential to enhance anti-tumor activity. We believe that this is the optimal design and look forward to seeing how it plays out in the clinic."
Dr. Cohen-Dayag added, "Our license agreement with AstraZeneca is part of our strategy to broaden opportunities for our pipeline and specifically capitalize on the potentially emerging promise of bispecific products while maintaining our focus on the development of COM902 as part of various combinations either by Compugen or in collaboration with future partners, including in combination with COM701 our potential first-in-class anti-PVRIG antibody."
About the Compugen-AstraZeneca License Agreement
In 2018, Compugen and AstraZeneca entered into an agreement by which Compugen provided an exclusive license to AstraZeneca to use Compugen’s monospecific antibodies that bind to TIGIT, including COM902, for the development of bispecific and multi-specific antibody products, excluding such bispecific and multi-specific antibodies that also bind to PVRIG, PVRL2 and/or TIGIT. AstraZeneca is responsible for all research, development, and commercial activities. AstraZeneca has the right to create multiple products under this license. To date, Compugen has received a $10 million upfront payment, an additional $8 million in milestone payments and is entitled to an additional $7.5 million payment triggered by Phase 2 initiation, out of up to an aggregate milestone amount of $200 million that the Company is eligible to receive in development, regulatory and commercial milestones for the first product, as well as tiered royalties on future product sales. If additional bi or multi-specific products are developed based on Compugen’s monospecific antibodies that bind to TIGIT, additional milestones and royalties would be due to Compugen.