Bayer Enters $540 Million Cancer Deal With Compugen
Bayer and Compugen have announced this week that they have signed a cancer immunotherapy deal which has the potential to be worth over US $540 million to the Israeli biotechnology company.
Compugen Ltd confirmed the signing of collaboration and license agreement with global pharmaceutical company Bayer for the research, development and commercialization of antibody-based therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy against two novel immune checkpoint regulators.
The collaboration will see a joint pursuit of a preclinical research program by both Bayer and Compugen. Following the research program, Bayer is entitled to full control over any development of potential cancer therapeutics. They also have worldwide commercialization rights.
Compugen is a leading drug discovery company focused on therapeutic proteins and monoclonal antibodies to address important unmet needs in the fields of immunology and oncology. The new partnership revolves around Compugen’s discovery of two novel immune checkpoint regulators which potentially play a key role in immunosuppression. These will be used to develop antibody-based therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy.
Researchers at Compugen are developing specific therapeutic antibodies that are geared to block the immunosuppressive function of these targets and to reactivate the patient`s anti-tumour immune response in order to fight cancer.
In a media statement Professor Andreas Busch, Member of the Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee and Head of Global Drug Discovery said that Bayer is “committed to translating the science of cancer research into effective therapies helping people affected by cancer live longer and improve their quality of life.”
“Antibody-based immunotherapies are promising approaches in oncology which can stimulate the body’s own immune cells to fight cancer cells. Immunotherapy is one of our focus areas in oncology research. We are looking forward to expanding our portfolio in this area through partnering with Compugen,” he continued.
Bayer is paying an upfront fee of $10 million and over $500 million in potential milestone payments for both programmes, plus an extra $30 million associated with preclinical activities. Compugen is also eligible to receive mid-to-high single-digit royalties on sales of any resulting products.
Commenting on the alliance, Compugen’s CEO and President Professor Anat Cohen-Dayag said “We believe that the prediction and validation of these two targets, through the use of our broadly applicable predictive discovery infrastructure, provides additional validation for our long-term commitment to establishing this unique capability."
He continued that they were “very excited to initiate this collaboration for the development of antibody-based cancer immunotherapies against these two promising novel immune checkpoint targets.”