Gilead and Compugen Ink Pact For Novel Pre-clinical Immunotherapy

Gilead Sciences, Inc has announced an exclusive license deal with Compugen Ltd. to license its potential first-in-class, pre-clinical antibody program against IL-18 binding protein, which includes the COM503 drug candidate. Compugen Ltd. is a clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy company and a pioneer in computational target discovery.

Compugen Ltd utilizes its broadly applicable predictive computational discovery capabilities to identify novel drug targets and biological pathways for developing novel cancer immunotherapies. COM503 drug candidate is a potential first-in-class, high affinity antibody which blocks the interaction between IL-18 binding protein and IL-18, thereby releasing natural IL-18 in the tumour microenvironment and inhibiting cancer growth, as per pharmabiz

With a potential deal value of up to $848 million, Gilead will receive exclusive rights to the later stages of development and commercialization of anti-IL18 binding protein antibodies. Gilead will also be required to pay an upfront payment of $60 million and a near-term milestone payment of $30 million.

"We are very pleased to add COM503 to our pipeline of investigational immuno-oncology therapies that have the potential to transform care for patients with cancer," said Flavius Martin, executive VP - research, Gilead Sciences. "We believe that this collaboration complements our strategy of developing modalities which promote immune-mediated tumor killing and may enable new combination therapies with programs in our growing oncology portfolio."

As per the agreement, Compugen will be in charge of COM503's future phase 1 trial as well as its current pre-clinical development. Gilead will then be the only company authorized to create and market COM503. Gilead will be the exclusive licensee of Compugen's preclinical antibody asset that targets the Il-18 binding protein, as well as Israeli biotech's COM503 drug candidate, which is intended to prevent IL-18 binding proteins from interacting with IL-18 and release endogenous IL-18 into a tumor to inhibit the growth of cancer.