Compugen Announces Appointment of Henry Adewoye, MD, as Chief Medical Officer

HOLON, Israel, March 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN), a leader in predictive discovery and development of first-in-class therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy, today announced the appointment of Dr. Henry Adewoye, to the newly created position of Chief Medical Officer, effective immediately. Dr. Adewoye brings to Compugen over two decades of extensive and broad experience in leading multiple clinical trials in oncology and hematology in both the biopharmaceutical industry and academia.  As Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Adewoye will play a key role in leading the Company's transition into a clinical stage company, and will assume overall responsibility of Compugen's clinical stage pipeline programs. Dr. Adewoye will be based at Compugen's South San Francisco facilities and will report to Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag, Compugen's President and CEO as part of the Company's senior management team.

Anat Cohen-Dayag, PhD, President and CEO of Compugen stated: "We are pleased to welcome Henry to Compugen's management team as we advance our pipeline of product candidates into the clinic. We look forward to benefiting from Henry's extensive clinical drug development expertise and his contributions to the development of our first-in-class therapeutics targeting significant unmet medical needs of patients suffering from a variety of cancers."

Dr. Adewoye joins Compugen from Gilead Sciences Inc., where he most recently served as Clinical Director in Oncology Clinical Research, was on the Oncology Leadership Team and held positions of increasing responsibility as Project Team and Clinical Lead for multiple Phase 1-3 Programs (Idelalisib – the first PI3 kinase delta inhibitor approved for relapsed CLL, SLL and Follicular lymphoma), Andecaliximab (MMP-9 inhibitor), GS-9901, and Acalisib. Prior to Gilead, he was Clinical Research Medical Director in Oncology at Amgen Inc. and Global Medical Monitor for the initial registrational trial of the bispecific antibody blinatumomab (Blincyto®) and several Phase 2 and 3 studies evaluating VEGF inhibitors (motesanib, trebananib) in patients with solid tumors.  Dr. Adewoye completed his Fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Boston Medical Center and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Meharry Medical College.  Dr. Adewoye received his medical degree at the University of Jos, Nigeria and Fellowship training in hematology and laboratory medicine at the University College Hospital Ibadan, Nigeria. Dr Adewoye is Board Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Medical Oncology, Hematology and Internal Medicine.

Henry Adewoye, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Compugen said: "I am excited to join Compugen and look forward to working with the entire team in California and Israel, as well as with the Scientific Advisory Board and the clinical investigators as we initiate first-in-human trials for COM701, a therapeutic antibody targeting the novel immune checkpoint PVRIG, later in 2018 and for COM902, a therapeutic antibody targeting TIGIT, in 2019.  Compugen's computational discovery capabilities uniquely position the Company within this competitive industry, with the ability to discover new drug targets and develop first-in-class cancer immunotherapy drugs to potentially broaden the treatment options available to physicians and cancer patients today."

About Compugen

Compugen is a therapeutic discovery and development company utilizing its broadly applicable predictive discovery infrastructure to identify novel drug targets and develop first-in-class therapeutics in the field of cancer immunotherapy. The Company's therapeutic pipeline consists of immuno-oncology programs against novel drug targets it has discovered, including T cell immune checkpoints and myeloid target programs. Compugen's business model is to selectively enter into collaborations for its novel targets and related drug product candidates at various stages of research and development. The Company is headquartered in Israel, with R&D facilities in both Israel and South San Francisco, CA. Compugen's shares are listed on NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CGEN. For additional information, please visit Compugen's corporate website at http://www.cgen.com.

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of terminology such as "will," "may," "expects," "anticipates," "believes," "potential," "plan," "goal," "estimate," "likely," "should," "confident," and "intends," and describe opinions about possible future events. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Compugen to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Among these risks: Compugen's business model is substantially dependent on entering into collaboration agreements with third parties and Compugen may not be successful in generating adequate revenues or commercializing aspects of its business model. Moreover, the development and commercialization of therapeutic candidates involve many inherent risks, including failure to progress to clinical trials or, if they progress to or enter clinical trials, failure to receive regulatory approval. These and other factors, including the ability to finance the Company, are more fully discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of Compugen's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as other documents that may be subsequently filed by Compugen from time to time with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent Compugen's views only as of the date of this release and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of any subsequent date. Compugen does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements unless required by law.

Company contact:
Elana Holzman
Director, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications
Compugen Ltd.
Email: elanah@cgen.com
Tel: +972 (3) 765-8124

Investor Relations contact:
Burns McClellan, Inc.
Jill Steier
Email: jsteier@burnsmc.com
Tel: +1-212-213-0006

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SOURCE Compugen Ltd.