Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN) has announced that the USPTO has granted it a new patent covering a method of use for COM701. COM701 is the company’s novel first-in-class therapeutic antibody that targets PVRIG in triple combination with an anti-PD-1 and anti—TIGIT antibody for cancer treatment.
Compugen receives a new patent
The Patent No 11,225,523 entitled, “Triple Combination Antobody Therapies,” supports patents issued before by protecting and expanding the use of COM701 in cancer treatment to include COM701 combination with an anti-PD-1 and anti-TIGIT antibody. The patent is expected to expire in August 2037.
CEO Anat Cohen-Dayag, said, “We are focused on maintaining our first mover advantage in the clinic, as the only company with monotherapy, doublet and triplet combination clinical studies evaluating PVRIG, TIGIT, and PD-1. We believe that this patent protection of triple combination regimens further strengthens our leadership position as we continue to execute on our clinical programs based on our DNAM axis hypothesis to treat patients with inflamed and less inflamed tumors who are not responding to current standard of care.”
COM701 binds to PVRIG with a strong affinity
COM701 is a humanized antibody that attaches to PVRIG, a novel immunological checkpoint identified computationally by the company, with strong affinity, preventing connection with its receptor, PVRL2. Blocking PVRIG with COM701 has shown significant, repeatable augmentation of T cell stimulation in preclinical trials, which is compatible with the expected action mechanism of activating T cells in the tumor environment to induce antitumor immunity reactions. In addition, Compugen has identified PVRIG and TIGIT, which interact with the well-known PD-1 pathway, as major concurrent and complementary inhibitory mechanisms in the DNA axis.
According to Compugen’s research, these three routes have variable dominance in various tumor kinds and patients, meaning that blocking varying combinations of the three pathways may be required in some patient groups to produce meaningful antitumor responses. Compugen has built a science-driven, biomarker-informed trial program to evaluate this idea, which tests various combinations of the axis members among tumor types. As a result, Compugen is the only firm globally with clinical assets addressing both TIGIT and PVRIG.
