Compugen Ltd (CGEN)

[midastouch017]

Medarex and Compugen Announce Therapeutic Antibody Co-Development Agreement
Tuesday January 23, 6:00 am ET


PRINCETON, N.J. and TEL AVIV, Israel, Jan. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Medarex, Inc. (Nasdaq: MEDX - News) and Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN - News) 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 antibody-based therapeutics resulting from this collaboration, and share revenues generated from the sale of such therapeutic products.

Under the collaboration, Compugen expects to utilize 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®. The collaboration also provides that Compugen may independently pursue diagnostic applications involving certain antibodies and targets.

"We are pleased with this opportunity to pair our UltiMAb technology with new disease targets that may be generated by Compugen's target discovery capabilities and to potentially develop novel therapeutics to fight serious and life-threatening conditions," said Irwin Lerner, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Interim President and CEO of Medarex. "This new partnership also provides us with the potential opportunity to broaden the number of product candidates to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases currently in our pipeline."

"We are very excited about this broad collaboration with Medarex, a recognized world leader in developing antibody based therapies," said Alex Kotzer, CEO and President of Compugen. "This is a strategic move forward for Compugen with respect to collaborating in development and commercialization, as well as research and discovery. 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."

About Medarex

Medarex is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development, and potential commercialization of fully human antibody-based therapeutics to treat life-threatening and debilitating diseases, including cancer, inflammation, autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases. Medarex applies its UltiMAb® technology and product development and clinical manufacturing experience to generate, support and potentially commercialize a broad range of fully human antibody product candidates for itself and its partners. Thirty-six of these therapeutic product candidates derived from Medarex technology are in human clinical testing or have had INDs submitted for such trials, with six of the most advanced product candidates currently in Phase III clinical trials. Medarex is committed to building value by developing a diverse pipeline of antibody products to address the world's unmet healthcare needs. For more information about Medarex, visit its website at www.medarex.com.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070123/aqtu014.html?.v=2