Compugen Ltd (CGEN)

[midastouch017]

Compugen to Present Experimental Data for its Novel Splice Variant of c-Met Receptor
Thursday February 8, 7:00 am ET
Data to be presented at GTCBio's Cancer Drugs Research & Development Conference

TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq:CGEN - News) announced today that it will present experimental results for its previously disclosed CGEN-241 therapeutic candidate, a splice variant of c-Met receptor, at GTCBio's Cancer Drugs Research & Development Conference (February 8-9, 2007, Philadelphia, PA).

CGEN-241 is a truncated form of the c-Met receptor predicted by Compugen's discovery engine to be encoded by a splice variant and to be secreted from the cell. It comprises part of the extracellular domain and ends in a stretch of unique amino acids. In the assessment of the biological activity of CGEN-241 as an antagonist of the HGF-Met pathway in various assays and model systems, the molecule demonstrated strong inhibition of multiple cellular functions related to this pathway, including cell proliferation, motility and invasion. These findings indicate that CGEN-241 is a potent antagonist of the HGF/Met pathway, with anti-tumorigenic and anti-metastatic activities, suggesting a therapeutic potential.

The protein product of the c-Met oncogene is the tyrosine kinase receptor for hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), and Compugen has discovered soluble variants of this receptor. The HGF-Met pathway is involved in a wide range of biological functions, including cell proliferation and survival, cell migration and invasion, as well as angiogenesis. Inappropriate activation of this signaling pathway has been implicated in tumor development and progression of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies. In view of the critical role that this pathway plays in cancer, various inhibitory strategies have been employed by companies to therapeutically target the pathway and several candidates are currently in development.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070208/20070208005380.html?.v=1