Compugen has unveiled a new program for finding better variants of known potential cancer drugs and proteins. The potential drugs will apply monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy, which stimulates the body’s immune system to target cells.

The Israeli drug discovery company said that its program has already identified four protein splice variants that have potential advantages as oncology targets compared with known proteins.

Compugen said it is utilizing its proprietary in silico human transcriptome and proteome and additional computational systems to discover the splice variants of known drug targets.

“This is an excellent example of how we can utilize our proprietary predictive biology infrastructure on a ‘market-need’ driven basis to quickly identify in silico discoveries in areas of high industry interest that have eluded traditional experimentally based approaches,” said Dr. Anat Cohen-Dayag, president and CEO of Compugen. “It took more than a decade of pioneering the understanding of key life processes at the molecular level, such as alternative splicing, to create the core of this infrastructure, but it is now proving to be a valuable and unique resource for systematic therapeutic and diagnostic product candidate discovery.”

Compugen is a world leader in understanding the alternative splicing of genes. The company has put the new variants into its drug development program.