Professor Stephen Miller from Northwestern University, a leading scientist in this field who supervised the studies, stated, Our studies have indicated robust disease suppressing activity for CGEN-15001 in the SJL R-EAE model, a recognized mouse model for multiple sclerosis. These studies have also demonstrated that CGEN-15001 has the unique ability to inhibit proliferation, differentiation, and cytokine production of pro-inflammatory Th1 and Th17 responses while at the same time sparing or actually promoting regulatory Th2-derived cytokines. As far as I am aware, this potentially very beneficial pattern of inhibiting Th1/Th17 while promoting Th2 responses is unique among the reagents targeting the B7 family of co-stimulatory molecules that have been published to date.

Compugen ™s VP R&D, Dr. Zurit Levine stated, We are extremely pleased by this further demonstration of the unique discovery capability that has been created at Compugen. In view of its recognized potential in the largely unmet and critical field of immune regulation, the B7/CD28 co-stimulation protein family has been an area of extensive research for a number of years. In our opinion, in addition to providing Compugen with a very attractive product candidate, the predictive discovery and experimental validation of a previously unknown member of this extensively researched protein family represents a major milestone in the transition from experimentally based therapeutic discovery to in silico prediction and selection.

SOURCE Compugen Ltd.