Proactive Investors - Gilead Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:GILD) announced that it has entered into an agreement with Compugen Ltd to exclusively license Compugen's pre-clinical antibody program against IL-18 binding protein, including the COM503 drug candidate, which is targeting cancer.
Per the agreement, Compugen will be responsible for the ongoing pre-clinical development and future Phase 1 study of COM503 after which Gilead will have the sole right to develop and commercialize the drug.
Gilead will pay Compugen $60 million upfront and $30 million in a near-term milestone payment subject to Investigational New Drug clearance by the Food and Drug Administration which is expected in 2024.
Compugen can earn up to another $758 million in milestone payments, bringing the total value of the deal to $848 million.
It will also be eligible to receive tiered royalty payments on worldwide sales ranging from the single-digit to low double-digits.
“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," Gilead Sciences executive vice president Dr. Flavius Martin said.
"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."
Compugen CEO Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag added: “We are delighted to enter into this collaboration with Gilead and believe that Gilead’s confidence in our differentiated approach to harness cytokine biology for cancer therapeutics speaks to the quality of our computational discovery capabilities as well as our ability to translate our novel discoveries into investigational drugs in the clinic and we look forward to working together to bring new treatment options to patients.”
Compugen shares spiked on the news on Tuesday, trading at about US$1.90 in the late afternoon on Wednesday. Gilead Sciences shares traded 0.9% lower at US$78.81.