Compugen Ltd (CGEN)

[genisi]

Notes from Compugene's presentation:

What can I say? so much promise, so little outcome...

Alex Kotzer (CEO for nearly 2 years) and Nurit benjamini (CFO) both sounded intelligent and reliable. I think they understood that selling their software or doing screening jobs for others are not enough. When I asked if they can show a prove to their long term efforts, Dr. Kotzer said that he can not but that there is a possibility that some of their customers used their software and data base and actually developed a drug but they will never know. The current business model is to try to move to clinical trials as soon as possible either with one of their own molecules or with a partnered one. The partner will define the target and will pay for milestones and royalties in case of a drug.
The company has laboratories with some 10-15 people doing in vitro and in vivo studies of proteins discovered by their computerized models. They also do some projects of discovering molecules for partners (Biosite, TEVA and MEDX). These are the kind of deals they are seeking in the future and I say, the more the merrier.
They are burning as much as $14M per year so they will be out of cash by the end of 2008 so I don't think that there is any point in buying the stock before that.