HOLON, Israel, May 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN), a leading predictive drug discovery company, today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2016.
Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., Compugen's President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "The novel nature of our early-stage immuno-oncology Pipeline Program and the data we are obtaining provide the potential for multiple transformational, first-in-class, antibody drugs for immuno-oncology. In this respect, CGEN-15029, the lead internal program in our immuno-oncology pipeline, is anticipated to reach IND filing next year."
Dr. Cohen-Dayag continued, "In addition to programs, such as CGEN-15029, based on immune checkpoint candidates expressed on T cells, our immuno-oncology pipeline also includes novel target candidates expressed on myeloid cells. Myeloid target candidates have been identified by Compugen within the tumor microenvironment of multiple types of cancers, and we are now in the process of verifying their role in T cell inhibition and further assessing potential mechanisms of action by which they may suppress immune response. We are excited about our discoveries in this emerging field of tumor biology, and believe that our novel myeloid target candidates may provide new treatment options for patients whose disease is refractory to existing immune checkpoint inhibitors or other treatment modalities."
Dr. Cohen-Dayag added, "Our access to the knowledge and expertise of highly distinguished leaders in the industry provides us with support and guidance to navigate the challenging path of translating novel drug targets to therapies. In this respect, we were very pleased to announce today that Steven Holtzman, former Executive Vice President of Corporate Development at Biogen, has joined Compugen as a strategic business advisor. Steve brings a remarkable breadth of experience on multiple business fronts in the biotech industry. We look forward to working with Steve and benefiting from his guidance and experience as we advance toward our goal of transforming our novel immuno-oncology target candidates into the next wave of cancer immunotherapies."
Revenues for the first quarter of 2016 were $0.1 million, compared with $0.5 million in the comparable period of 2015, in both cases consisting primarily of the non-cash amortization of the upfront payment from the August 2013 collaboration and license agreement with Bayer Pharma (the "Bayer Agreement").
R&D expenses for the first quarter of 2016 were $6.8 million, compared with $4.8 million in the comparable period of 2015.
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