COMPUGEN, MEDAREX TO COLLABORATE ON THERAPEUTIC ANTIBODIES

Israeli drugmaker Compugen and Medarex announced they have entered into a collaborative agreement to develop novel monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics for oncology and autoimmune diseases. Under the terms of the agreement, Medarex and Compugen plan to share discovery, development and commercialization responsibilities on therapeutics resulting from this collaboration, and to share revenues generated from the sale of such therapeutic products.

Under the collaboration, Compugen expects to employ its proprietary antibody-target discovery engine to identify novel drug targets. Medarex plans to develop fully human antibodies against these targets using its UltiMAb Human Antibody Development System.

"This is a strategic move forward for Compugen with respect to collaborating in development and commercialization, as well as research and discovery," Alex Kotzer, president and CEO of Compugen, said. "In addition, this is our first collaborative agreement in the field of therapeutics, following a number of recent agreements in various areas of diagnostics. We believe Medarex is the ideal partner to work with on our discoveries in the field of antibody targets as we continue to focus our discovery engine approach to new and exciting diagnostic and therapeutic areas."