CGEN

This past weekend I sent out a Biotechnology Basket consisting of eight smaller capitalization biotechnology stocks poised for stunning growth over the coming years.  Of those eight names, three are core positions.  Compugen is one of these core holdings.

CGEN Weekly Trend Model

"George Gilder and Louis Navellier both have strong buys on this one and after a little R&D this weekend, so do I.  Israeli therapeutic and diagnostic biomarker company, state-of-the-art computer based discovery platforms for analyzing RNA and DNA, the building blocks of life.  Collaborations: Pfizer, Merck, Bayer, Medarex, Roche, Teva, Siemens and others. $140M market cap a fraction of what this company (and stock) will be worth in the years ahead.  You wanted to buy Genentech in 1980. Here is your chance."

---Weekend Update, Sunday March 21, 2010

Compugen Announces Discovery Platform to Predict Cell Penetrating Peptides for Drug Delivery

Press Release Source: Compugen Ltd. On Tuesday March 16, 2010, 7:00 am EDT 

TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN) announced today the development and validation of its Intracellular Drug Delivery (IDD) discovery platform for identification of cell penetrating peptides. Compugen also announced that as part of the validation process for the new platform, more than twenty novel peptides, predicted and selected in silico, demonstrated the predicted cell penetrating properties in initial experimental validation studies.

CGEN added yesterday in Global Growth Letter. Buy below 4.78. 

"Israel's Compugen (CGEN) is an innovative drug discovery company that uses its expertise in computer sciences and molecular biology to predict molecular behavior and discover potential therapies and diagnostic biomarkers. The company then licenses those discoveries, which are focused primarily in the areas of cancer, cardiovascular disease and immune disorders, to other drug firms for further development in return for milestone payments and future royalties. In a nutshell, CGEN's high-tech gear and genius scientists figure out the best potential cures, then someone else does all the work while Compugen shares in the profits! Compugen has formed licensing and collaboration partnerships with some of the biggest names in pharma including Biosite, Medarex, Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics and Roche, proving that it certainly knows its stuff.

"On Tuesday, the company announced the discovery of a potential treatment of autoimmune disorders called CGEN-15001. This has big potential for the company, with the potential for breakthrough profits. The stock is a great buy but is also thinly traded like PVD, so I must insist that you only place a limit order within 25 cents of the previous day's closing price. Again, under no circumstances do I want you to place a market order, since you could inadvertently send the stock soaring and hurt yourself and other investors."

So what is special about Compugen's announcement today?

"Compugen's predictive discovery of the parent protein in a field that has been systematically picked over by pharma giants is in and of itself noteworthy. The subsequent predictive discovery of CGEN-15001, a novel soluble recombinant fusion protein corresponding to the extracellular region of the Compugen discovered parent protein, and the results of the in vivo testing conducted by Professor Stephen Miller of Northwestern University speak for themselves.

"Equally important, however, is to place today's announcement within the context of previous announcements. The initial product candidates emanating from and intended to validate Compugen's discovery platforms do not seek to extend life expectancies by weeks or months and are not mere enhancements of existing medicines. Rather, we are seeing a growing list of new product candidates, tested by leading authorities, some of which hopefully will provide meaningful solutions for widely prevalent conditions for which medicines are lacking, e.g., pulmonary fibrosis, IBD, retinopathy, epithelial tumors and MS.

"In addition, examine today's announcement together with earlier announcements, and you cannot help but notice the broad applicability of Compugen's science. Compugen's understanding of biological phenomena on the molecular level has implications extending far beyond any single disease or disease category.

"How often can you enter into a conversation with a group of people and take enormous satisfaction in being able to acknowledge your own ignorance? This is what routinely happens to me when I visit Compugen, and I couldn’t be more pleased. If there is to be a new industrial revolution, i.e. a revolution in the pharma industry, involving a shift away from trial and error to predictive discovery, it will require a combination of creativity and brain power beyond my meager means, but which I am privileged to witness and admire at Compugen."

 CPP discovery platform announcement:

If you are brave (!) and want to understand the full implications of Compugen’s cell penetrating peptide (CPP) discovery platform announcement, read: “Cell-penetrating peptides and their therapeutic applications” by Victoria Sebbage.

http://biohorizons.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/64.full

“CPPs have demonstrated themselves to be capable of delivering biologically active cargo to the cell interior and the vehicular capabilities of CPPs have already been harnessed for use as laboratory tools. However, it is believed that their true potential lies within the field of therapeutics. Attached to a CPP, therapeutic cargo could be delivered to an intracellular target, thus overcoming the entry restrictions set by the plasma membrane. Since the discovery of Tat, the number of known peptides with cell-penetrating capabilities has grown and in 2003, the first CPP-based drug reached phase II clinical trials.”

"A likely scenario: Company X comes to Compugen and says “we have a biologically proven therapeutic, but we can’t get past the cell membrane, can you help?” This is one of the reasons the CPP discovery platform, IMO, is a unique and important part of Compugen’s “discovery-on-demand” offerings."

I could have stopped at the Weekly chart and would have made a persuasive case for being LONG this stock and company.  But the underlying story here is immense in implications for the future of diagnostic and therapeutic medicine.  I've included the above links in an attempt to tell CGEN's story, or at a minimum, provide some starting points whereby you can familiarize yourself with the science and opportunity here.   The stock is up about 3% from Monday's open, which is inconsequential in relation to the potential gains over the next few years.


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