Compugen Expands Patent Portfolio for TIGIT Inhibitor COM902 with New US Composition of Matter Patent

On August 28, 2020 Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN), a clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy company and leader in predictive target discovery, reported that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a new patent covering the composition of matter of COM902, its immuno-oncology therapeutic antibody targeting TIGIT (Press release, Compugen, AUG 28, 2020, View Source [SID1234564145]).

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U.S. Patent No. 10,751,415, titled "Anti-TIGIT Antibodies, Anti-PVRIG Antibodies and Combinations Thereof," relates to the composition of matter of COM902, alone or in combination with a second antibody targeting an immune checkpoint, including PD-1 and PVRIG (specifically COM701). This patent is expected to expire no earlier than August 2037 in the United States.

This patent expands intellectual property protection for COM902 in the United States, for which a patent was previously issued in November 2018, relating to the method of use of COM902 for activating T cells in cancer patients, in addition to claims covering the combination of COM902 and COM701 for activating T cells in cancer patients. Similar to this new U.S. patent, in November 2019, Compugen was also granted a European patent relating to the composition of matter of COM902, alone or in combination with a second antibody targeting an immune checkpoint, including PD-1 and PVRIG (specifically COM701), as well as for use in treating cancer by activating T cells.

About COM902
COM902 is a high affinity, fully human antibody that blocks the interaction of TIGIT with PVR, its ligand, and consequently enhances T cell function. It is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial in patients with advanced malignancies who have exhausted all available standard therapies. Compugen has demonstrated in preclinical studies that simultaneous inhibition of TIGIT and PVRIG, the two coinhibitory arms of the DNAM axis, can increase antitumor immune responses, which may be further enhanced with the addition of PD-1 blockade. These data suggest that treatment with COM701 and COM902, targeting PVRIG and TIGIT, respectively, alone or in combination with a PD-1 inhibitor, has the potential to expand immuno-oncology treatment to patient populations who are non-responsive or refractory to existing immunotherapies.

The discovery of TIGIT, using the Company’s computational discovery platform, was published by Compugen in October 2009 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).