Compugen shares jump on autoimmune drug validation work

Israel's Compugen saw its stock price shoot up 17 percent this morning on the news that it has discovered and completed early validation work on a promising protein that could prove an effective therapy for autoimmune diseases. The developer says that the protein--CGEN-15001--shows promise for multiple sclerosis, lupus erythematosus, Type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease, along with other ailments.

Compugen touted the use of its LEADS Platform and other proprietary algorithms for validating the protein.

"Our studies have indicated robust disease suppressing activity for CGEN-15001 in the SJL R-EAE model,a recognized mouse model for multiple sclerosis," says Northwestern Professor Stephen Miller. "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."

- check out the press release
- here's the Dow Jones report

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