Compugen Ltd. (NASDAQ: CGEN)
issued the following statement today.
In recent days newspapers in Israel have reported that the Israel
Securities Authority (“ISA”) is investigating Mr. Aryeh Czaczkes
Axselbrad, the husband of Ms. Dikla Czaczkes Axselbrad, Compugen’s CFO,
for allegedly providing friends and family members last year with
insider information regarding a then impending collaboration agreement
between Compugen and Bayer Pharma AG. The newspapers have also reported
that Aryeh Czaczkes Axselbrad was released under restrictive conditions
and that his attorney has stated that he denied the accusations.
Mr. Martin Gerstel, Compugen’s Chairman of the Board of Directors
stated, “Although certain officers of the Company, including Dikla, have
been investigated by the ISA, to the Company's knowledge, the Company
itself is not a subject of this investigation. Furthermore, to the
Company's knowledge, currently no restrictions have been imposed by the
ISA on Dikla’s continuing performance as CFO of Compugen.”
Mr. Gerstel continued, “Any incident of insider trading would be a very
serious violation of long standing Company policy and would be treated
as such. Since the investigation is still at an early stage, no changes
are being made at this time with respect to Dikla's role at Compugen,
however this decision will of course be subject to review as additional
information becomes available.”
About Compugen
Compugen is a leading drug discovery company focused on therapeutic
proteins and monoclonal antibodies to address important unmet needs in
the fields of immunology and oncology. The Company utilizes a broad and
continuously growing integrated infrastructure of proprietary scientific
understandings and predictive platforms, algorithms, machine learning
systems and other computational biology capabilities for the in
silico (by computer) prediction and selection of product candidates,
which are then advanced in its Pipeline Program. The Company's business
model includes collaborations covering the further development and
commercialization of product candidates at various stages from its
Pipeline Program and various forms of research and discovery agreements,
in both cases providing Compugen with potential milestone payments and
royalties on product sales or other forms of revenue sharing. Compugen’s
wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary located in South San Francisco is
developing oncology and immunology monoclonal antibody therapeutic
candidates against its drug targets. For additional information, please
visit Compugen's corporate website at http://www.cgen.com/.
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the
meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These
statements, include words such as “may,” “expects,” “anticipates,”
“potential,” “believes,” and “intends,” and describe opinions about
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. Some of these risks and other factors
are discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of Compugen’s Annual Report
on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2013 as filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. 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.
Copyright Business Wire 2014