Drug discovery company Compugen Ltd. (Nasdaq: CGEN; TASE: CGEN) said today that its CGEN-25007 peptide has shown positive therapeutic effects in an animal model of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Inflammatory bowel disease is a commonly used term covering ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
CGEN-25007 is a novel peptide antagonist of gp96 with potent anti-inflammatory activity. It was initially discovered using Tel Aviv-based Compugen’s disease-associated conformation blockers discovery system. This system was designed to find peptides that block proteins from achieving certain disease-associated conformations, a capability that represents immense therapeutic promise in numerous fields.
In a recent study, administration of CGEN-25007 protected mice from the effects of lethal colitis. These results suggest that CGEN-25007 could have a potential therapeutic utility to treat IBD and other autoimmune diseases with a strong inflammatory component, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
University of Erlangen, Germany Professor Markus F. Neurath, who supervised the study, said, “If these results continue to be confirmed in further studies, this molecule should represent a very exciting drug candidate for this substantial, and largely unmet, medical need."
Inflammatory bowel disease is a chronic, relapsing and remitting inflammatory condition, affecting around two million people. In the US, IBD is one of the most prevalent gastrointestinal disease burdens.
Compugen shares closed yesterday at $1.21, giving a market cap of $34.5 million.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 23, 2009
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