On January 8, 2024 Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN) (TASE: CGEN) a clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy company and a pioneer in computational target discovery, reported that Compugen is entitled to receive a $10 million milestone payment from AstraZeneca (LSE/STO/Nasdaq: AZN), after the first patient was dosed in AstraZeneca’s ARTEMIDE-Bil01 trial with rilvegostomig (Press release, Compugen, JAN 8, 2024, View Source [SID1234639123]). Rilvegostomig is a PD-1/TIGIT bispecific antibody where the TIGIT component is derived from Compugen’s clinical-stage anti-TIGIT antibody, COM902. The ARTEMIDE-Bil01 trial is expected to recruit about 750 subjects in more than 20 countries with biliary tract cancer who will be randomized to receive rilvegostomig or placebo with investigator choice chemotherapy as adjuvant treatment after resection with curative intent.
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"I am delighted to see the advancement of the rilvegostomig Phase 3 trial by AstraZeneca, a global leader in oncology, which has dosed the first patient triggering a $10 million milestone payment to Compugen," said Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., President, and Chief Executive Officer of Compugen. "Our license agreement with AstraZeneca is part of our strategy to broaden commercialization opportunities for our pipeline and specifically capitalize on the potentially emerging promise of bispecific therapies while maintaining our focus on the development of COM902 as part of the 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 multispecific antibody products, excluding such bispecific and multispecific 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. In addition to the $10 million milestone payment described in this press release, Compugen has received a $10 million upfront payment, and an additional $15.5 million in milestone payments to date, all 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 therapies are developed based on Compugen’s monospecific antibodies that bind to TIGIT, additional milestones and royalties would be due to Compugen.
Further details about ARTEMIDE-Bil01 trial are available on ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT06109779