Compugen, Bayer in Cancer Drug Pact

Compugen and Bayer HealthCare have signed a collaboration and license agreement for the research, development, and commercialization of antibody-based therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy against two of Compugen’s immune regulators. The two companies will jointly pursue a preclinical research program and Bayer will have full control of further development, along with worldwide commercialization rights for potential cancer therapies.
 
Compugen will receive a $10 million upfront payment, as much as $30 million for preclinical activities, and is eligible to receive as much as $500 million in potential milestones for both programs, as well as royalties on sales of any resulting products under the collaboration.
 
Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Compugen, said, “We are very excited to initiate this collaboration with Bayer, a leading global life science company with a broadening oncology franchise, for the development of antibody-based cancer immunotherapies against these two promising novel immune checkpoint targets. In addition, 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.”