Compugen Ltd (CGEN)

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Compugen Appoints Alex Kotzer President and Chief Executive Officer as of September
Tuesday May 10, 7:00 am ET


TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 10, 2005--Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq:CGEN - News) announced today the appointment of Alex Kotzer as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective September 1, 2005, after his relocation to Israel. Kotzer, whose most recent position was Vice President at Serono of Geneva, Switzerland, will replace current President and Chief Executive Officer Mor Amitai, Ph.D., who announced last October that he intends to resign from these positions before year end 2005.
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"Alex brings many years of relevant experience combined with a proven track record in managing biotech research, product development, and manufacturing in his previous positions at Serono and InterPharm," stated Martin Gerstel, Chairman of Compugen. "His background makes him ideal to lead Compugen, as we continue to expand and deepen our predictive research capabilities, and to advance the development and commercialization of our discovery engines as well as our diagnostic and therapeutic product candidates."

Gerstel added, "We are highly appreciative of Mor's efforts and accomplishments over the past decade. Compugen today is a world leader in advancing life science through the integration of mathematics and computational technologies with biology, and has established a unique position in the predictive discovery of potential therapeutic proteins and diagnostic biomarkers. These accomplishments, which are now providing us with ever-increasing potential for important medical contributions and substantial commercial success, have been made under Mor's guidance and leadership."

Kotzer commented, "I feel very privileged to join Compugen in the capacity of President and CEO at this important point in its development. Compugen's unique predictive approach to drug discovery, stemming from the integration of advanced mathematics and computational technologies with biology, sets it apart in philosophy and capabilities from other drug discovery and development companies. I look forward to the challenge of leading Compugen's outstanding team and contributing to the Company's continuing growth and future success."

For the past twelve years, Kotzer has been employed by Serono, a global biotechnology leader, headquartered in Switzerland, and by its Israeli affiliate, InterPharm. Initially he was President and Chief Executive Officer of InterPharm, which was at that time a public company. In 1999, he was promoted to Vice President of the parent company and relocated to Switzerland with responsibility for neurology and immunology product and process development, and for generating and executing the franchise's strategy. More recently, he was responsible for worldwide manufacturing of the active ingredients for all recombinant biological drugs of Serono. Kotzer has a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the Technion, Haifa, Israel.

About Compugen

Compugen is a drug and diagnostic discovery company incorporating ideas and methods from mathematics, computer science, and physics into biology, chemistry and medicine. The Company's powerful predictive models and discovery engines are both advancing the understanding of important biological phenomena and enabling the discovery of numerous potential therapeutic products and diagnostic markers. The Company has an early stage in-house pipeline consisting of selected therapeutic protein candidates discovered by the Company; additional discoveries have been out-licensed for development. Among Compugen's customers and partners are leading pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies, such as Abbott Laboratories, Diagnostic Products Corporation, Novartis, and Pfizer. Compugen has established a small-molecule drug discovery affiliate - Keddem Bioscience, and an agricultural biotechnology affiliate - Evogene. For additional information, please visit Compugen's corporate Website at www.cgen.com.

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