When predictive drug discovery firm Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN; TASE:CGEN) held its IPO on Nasdaq in August 2000, the dual towers had been nonetheless standing and the preliminary tough draft of the human genome sequence had simply been revealed.
Compugen was a pioneer in bioinformatics, which mixed genome information with pc capabilities however enthusiasm for the self-discipline rapidly waned as first the ‘genome bubble’ burst nearly instantly after its IPO, rapidly adopted by the bursting of the dot.com bubble.
Compugen not solely survived again then however can be one of many solely bioinformatics firms to have survived since then. It presently has a market cap of $128 million, down 90% from a peak of $1.5 billion in 2020.
Solely a biotech firm might survive 30 years because it was based with out producing any income. Compugen has burned via losses of $440 million because it was based (maybe greater than another Israeli life sciences firm). And nonetheless it’s seemed upon as an organization with potential.
Final week Compugen reported a change in focus, which incorporates ending its collaboration settlement with Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). The corporate has made such sudden modifications in path twice beforehand, not due to failures in scientific trials however following upheavals to make its enterprise mannequin in computational biology extra exact. Israeli firm Evogene (TASE: EVGN; Nasdaq: EVGN), previously a subsidiary of Compugen, has coped with comparable challenges within the area of agritech.
Compugen modified its mannequin for the primary time in 2004. Previous to that the corporate would offer pc providers to pharmaceutical firms and even recorded some preliminary income however understood that wasn’t the place the massive cash was as a result of it was seemed on as a service firm. Compugen determined that to be able to reveal how a lot its programs had been price, and to be able to obtain a bigger a part of the worth it was creating, it wanted to develop its personal medicine. So a lot of Compugen’s mathematicians had been changed by biologists. The corporate presently has 70 workers in its Holon headquarters.
The plan wasn’t to deliver merchandise to market independently however to deliver finalized merchandise to the drug firms, which might take them on to scientific trials. In 2009, Compugen chairman Martin Gerstel speculated that if the corporate might uncover dozens of medication and put them into the event pipeline of the massive pharma firms, at the very least just a few of them would advance to phases that might yield main returns. By 2010, the corporate had introduced some scientific discoveries and even signed first agreements with drug firms, however progress was painstakingly sluggish.
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At the moment, Compugen made certain to not enter any unbiased scientific trials, so the $58 million it had raised in 2000 lasted it via till 2009, along with small quantities from collaboration agreements and the sale of Evogene shares, which had been then at a peak.
In 2010, Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag was promoted to CEO and in 2011, the corporate introduced one other change in its enterprise mannequin: a deal with immunotherapy – in different phrases medicine that use the immune programs of the affected person to battle in opposition to most cancers, and particularly immune checkpoint inhibitors, medicine that forestall most cancers from ‘lurking’ within the immune system or halting the assault by the immune system on the tumor. This stood out as the most important attainable alternative for a computational biology firm, and it was clear that if the corporate had good merchandise on this space, the pharmaceutical firms wouldn’t be capable of ignore it. To get issues into perspective, Merck’s Keytruda, a most cancers drug on this sector, has annual gross sales of $14 billion.
The market rewarded Compugen for this resolution, and the share value started to rise. In 2013, the corporate’s strategy was ostensibly justified when pharma big Bayer took on two of Compugen’s most cancers therapy medicine and invested $10 million within the firm instantly, and likewise made subsequent funds. The corporate’s market cap jumped to $500 million.
In 2014, the corporate introduced the invention of a brand new immune checkpoint inhibitor known as COM701, out there with the best potential at the moment. Compugen subsequently introduced the invention of two extra TIGIT kind immune checkpoint inhibitors, whereas an organization known as Genentech devised them via different strategies. TIGIT grew to become one of the crucial fascinating fields within the most cancers market, with all the massive firms making an attempt to develop medicine that might work on this manner.
The 2 TIGIT discoveries put Compugen on the map in scientific phrases and demonstrated that its system knew what it was doing. However there was nonetheless a protracted approach to go in commercializing its knowhow. Compugen needed to present that these actions genuinely modified the most cancers course of and that the drug it had developed to intervene within the mechanism, actually might fight the most cancers.
On this manner Compugen reached the stage the place drug growth burns via some huge cash. Nevertheless it was within the hottest space of the business, so it was capable of increase more cash. The general public injected $150 million into the corporate’s coffers in a secondary providing and $32 million got here from the settlement with BMS, which has simply ended.
A brand new strategy with risks
So in the present day Compugen has its personal distinctive product COM701, the TIGIT product it found similtaneously different firms and it additionally strongly believes within the highly effective effectiveness of mixing them to deal with different varieties of cancers.
The settlement signed with BMS is designed to examine this three-way therapy of COM701, and the TIGIT additional developed by BMS and one other product of BMS, which it contributed to the settlement with Compugen, whereas the corporate was accountable for financing the trials.
The keenness for TIGIT merchandise specifically and biotech normally noticed Compugen’s share value soar in 2029, fueled by funding from guru Cathie Wooden’s Ark Make investments, which held a ten% stake within the firm, making it the most important shareholder.
However then one other bubble burst and the TIGIT sector went out of style after the failure of a trial by pharma big Roche.
So after burning via $440 million because it was based, primarily on scientific trials and high quality workers, the corporate has $100 million in its coffers. Compugen has now ended its settlement with BMS to economize throughout a interval that it expects to be financially difficult but in addition for strategic causes. Because of the fall in curiosity in its medicine together with within the TIGIT area, whereas believing that its product is in a superb class and is best than different firms, it desires to advertise its merchandise itself in classes that it believes can nonetheless show themselves as having probably the most main worth.
That is an strategy that has dangers, and takes the corporate one stage again in its scientific trials program. But when it succeeds, the rights to the product can be in Compugen’s fingers and it is going to be capable of transfer ahead with it in the best way that it sees match, with out relying on the tempo of a big pharma firm and its priorities.
As well as, Compugen has different merchandise in pre-clinical phases and the product from the Bayer collaboration in Section I trials. “The tempo at which Bayer is advancing with Compugen’s product is sluggish in contrast with what is going on within the area of most cancers, however no sluggish in contrast with the interval wherein it was begun,” says a supply accustomed to the sector.
Taking into consideration developments in massive information and computational biology in recent times, does Compugen’s system nonetheless have a aggressive benefit? In accordance with a supply within the sector, “Compugen will wrestle to speculate what’s required for its system, along with the numerous funding in scientific trials in a interval of cuts.” One other supply stated, ‘It has skilled computational biology individuals and anybody out there could be completely happy to take them if there have been cuts.”
However, within the biotech sector, as Compugen has confirmed previously, even with out a business product and income, it’s sufficient that ‘there are indicators of oil’ in the fitting space. The previous and current usually are not fascinating, solely the longer term.
Printed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on August 14 2022.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.
