Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN), an Israel-based clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy company, announced on Wednesday that it is likely to receive a milestone payment of USD7.5m from AstraZeneca, a British-Swedish multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company.

The company will receive the payment subsequent to the dosing of the first patient by AstraZeneca in its ARTEMIDE Phase 2 study with AZD2936, a PD-1/TIGIT bispecific antibody derived from COM902, Compugen's clinical-stage anti-TIGIT antibody.

Both firms entered into a contract in 2018, under which Compugen offered an exclusive license to AstraZeneca to use Compugen's monospecific antibodies that bind to TIGIT, including COM902, for the development of bispecific and multi-specific antibody products, excluding such bispecific and multi-specific antibodies that also bind to PVRIG, PVRL2 and/or TIGIT. Under the contract, AstraZeneca is responsible for all research, development, and commercial activities and has the right to create multiple products under this license.

To date, Compugen has received a USD10m upfront payment, an additional USD8m in milestone payments and is entitled to an additional USD7.5m payment triggered by Phase 2 initiation, out of up to an aggregate milestone amount of USD200mn that the company is eligible to receive in development, regulatory and commercial milestones for the first product, as well as tiered royalties on future product sales.