CGEN-15001 Restores Immune Tolerance and Provides Potential Paradigm Shift in Standard of Care for Multiple Autoimmune Diseases
HOLON, Israel, March 22, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN), a therapeutic discovery company, announced today that abstracts highlighting CGEN-15001, the Company’s autoimmune product candidate, have been accepted for presentation at Keystone Symposia and IMMUNOLOGY 2017TM.
Keystone Symposia: Immune Regulation in Autoimmunity and Cancer (D1)
March 26-30, 2017, Whistler, British Columbia
Poster 2001:
Tuesday, March 28, 7:30-10:00 pm PT, poster presentation
IMMUNOLOGY 2017
May 12-16, 2017, Washington, DC
Abstract 503:
Sunday, May 14, 10:15 - 10:30 am ET, podium presentation
Monday, May 15, 2:30 - 3:45 pm ET, poster presentations
Following the presentation, posters will be available on Compugen’s website at http://www.cgen.com.
Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., CEO and President of Compugen, stated, “With a large portion of the autoimmune patients failing to respond to existing standard of care treatments, and established franchises under threat of generic erosion, there is significantly increased interest by the industry in innovative approaches to treat autoimmune diseases.”
Dr. Cohen-Dayag continued, “CGEN-15001 has demonstrated the potential in preclinical studies to restore immune homeostasis and to avoid the global immune suppression generated by other therapeutic agents, thus potentially leading to tolerance induction and a durable therapeutic response in autoimmune conditions. Tolerance induction represents a paradigm shift in the treatment of multiple autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes. Therefore, CGEN-15001, as a potential first-in-class immune tolerance-inducing agent, is gaining increased industry interest. We have recently disclosed that CGEN-15001 is one of our four program areas of business development focus for potential industry collaborations.”
About CGEN-15001
CGEN-15001 is an Fc fusion protein drug candidate for autoimmune diseases, consisting of the fusion of the extracellular region of CGEN-15001T to an IgG Fc domain. CGEN-15001T is a novel immune checkpoint discovered by Compugen using its broadly applicable predictive discovery infrastructure. CGEN-15001 was previously shown to be effective in treating several autoimmune diseases in animal models, including models of multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes and psoriasis. In some of these models, a short period of treatment with CGEN-15001 was shown to induce a durable long-term response suggestive of an immune tolerance mechanism. Additional studies demonstrated that CGEN-15001 has an immuno-modulatory function manifested in attenuating inflammatory responses and promoting regulatory and anti-inflammatory activities, including the differentiation of regulatory T cells (Tregs), a population of immune cells that plays a pivotal role in induction and maintenance of immune tolerance. Importantly, the long-term therapeutic effect of CGEN-15001 appears to be associated with its ability to enhance the differentiation of Tregs.
About Immune Tolerance
Immune tolerance is the normal healthy state in which the immune system is programmed to avoid attacking the body’s own cells and tissues. Improper immune tolerance characterizes both cancer and autoimmunity. While in cancer the therapeutic goal is to break immune tolerance towards tumor antigens and thereby unleash the immune system to attack the tumor cells, in autoimmunity the goal is to restore immune tolerance towards the body’s healthy cells and thereby protect such cells from an immune attack.
In autoimmunity, the immune system mistakenly identifies the body’s own cells or tissues as foreign invaders, due to breach of self-tolerance, leading to various autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, or psoriasis. Reprogramming the immune system to restore tolerance and re-establish homeostasis can lead to a sustained resolution of autoimmunity and disease remission. In contrast, current therapeutic approaches that rely on suppressing the immune system can compromise its capacity to fight infectious diseases and malignancies, leading to the potential of severe side effects. Therefore, induction and maintenance of immune tolerance is widely recognized as a key unmet need in the treatment of autoimmune diseases.
Targeting immune checkpoints to restore immune tolerance in autoimmunity is a promising approach anticipated to bring a paradigm shift in the treatment of autoimmunity similar to advances now being made by immune checkpoint-based therapies in immuno-oncology.
About Compugen
Compugen is a leading therapeutic discovery company whose mission is to utilize its broadly applicable predictive discovery infrastructure to discover novel drug targets and develop first-in-class therapeutics. Our current pipeline consists of early and preclinical stage immuno-oncology programs based on novel drug targets discovered internally, primarily immune checkpoint and myeloid protein target candidates. These programs focus on the development of first-in-class cancer immunotherapy drugs with the potential to harness the immune system to provide treatment solutions in areas of unmet medical need in various cancer types and patient populations, both as monotherapy and in combination with other drugs. In addition, our pipeline currently includes a preclinical fusion protein autoimmune product candidate. Compugen’s business model is based on selectively entering into collaborations for its novel target candidates and related drug product candidates at various stages of research and development under revenue-sharing agreements. The Company is headquartered in Israel, with R&D facilities in Israel and South San Francisco. At the US facilities, therapeutic monoclonal antibodies are discovered and developed against the Company’s novel drug target candidates. For additional information, please visit Compugen’s corporate website at http://www.cgen.com.
