Dr. Shiran Zimri, Head of Scientific Programs at NeuroSense Therapeutics
Two Israeli medtech firms, NeuroSense and Compugen, this week have each made new announcements. NeuroSense Therapeutics, an Israeli company developing treatments for severe neurodegenerative diseases, made an offering of $4.5 million in new shares in a private placement. At the same time, Compugen Ltd., an Israeli clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy company, announced that the first patient has been dosed in the triple immunotherapy combination proof-of-concept study evaluating COM701, a new medication for the treatment of ovarian cancer.
Israeli high-tech firms and scientists have always been at the forefront of medical research and breakthroughs including cancer. Jewish Business News reported Friday on how NVision Imaging, an Israeli startup and developer of MRI polarizers and hyperpolarized imaging agents that could help with faster and more accurate cancer diagnosis and treatment, raised $30 million in a Series A fundraise.
Compugen is a clinical-stage therapeutic discovery and development company utilizing its broadly applicable predictive computational discovery capabilities to identify new drug targets and biological pathways for developing cancer immunotherapies. Compugen has developed two proprietary product candidates: COM701, a potential first-in-class anti-PVRIG antibody and COM902, a potential best-in-class antibody targeting TIGIT for the treatment of solid tumors.
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“We are very excited that the first patient with platinum resistant ovarian cancer has been dosed with the triple immunotherapy combination of COM701, COM902 and pembrolizumab in our proof-of-concept study. This milestone keeps us on track to report initial findings by the end of this year,” said Anat Cohen-Dayag, Ph.D., President, and CEO of Compugen. “The goal of the study is to build on the encouraging data previously reported by us at the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress 2022, with the dual and triple blockade of PVRIG and PD-1 with or without TIGIT. We expect that this study will help us to better understand the contribution of the components and contribute to our ongoing biomarker work to try and identify the patients most likely to respond, with the purpose of building a path to registration.”
Founded by CEO Micha Breakstone and CTO Edmund Benami as well as scientific co-founder Gil Shklarski who previously served as CTO of Flatiron Health, NeuroSense Therapeutics, Ltd. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing treatments for patients suffering from debilitating neurodegenerative diseases. NeuroSense believes that these diseases, which include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, among others, represent one of the most significant unmet medical needs of our time, with limited effective therapeutic options available for patients to date. Due to the complexity of neurodegenerative diseases and based on strong scientific research on a large panel of related biomarkers, NeuroSense’s strategy is to develop combined therapies targeting multiple pathways associated with these diseases.
NeuroSense entered into a securities purchase agreement with a single health-care focused institutional investor for the purchase and sale of 3,000,000 ordinary shares (or ordinary share equivalents in lieu thereof) in a registered direct offering and ordinary warrants to purchase up to 3,000,000 ordinary shares in a concurrent private placement (together with the registered direct offering, the “offering”) at a combined purchase price of $1.50. The ordinary warrants issued pursuant to the concurrent private placement will have an exercise price of $1.50 per ordinary share, will be immediately exercisable and will expire 5 years from the initial exercise date.
The closing of the offering is expected to occur on or about June 26, 2023, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. The gross proceeds from the offering are expected to be approximately $4.5 million, excluding any proceeds that may be received upon the exercise of the warrants, before deducting placement agent fees and other offering expenses payable by the Company. The Company intends to use the net proceeds of this offering to advance the clinical development of its lead product candidate, PrimeC for ALS, for the clinical development and preclinical and clinical research and development in support of potential investigational new drug applications for Alzheimer’s disease, for Parkinson’s disease and for other indications, for future research and development of new product candidates and for working capital and general corporate purposes.
